


Sea Change

by Narsil



Series: Ranma, the Naïve Succubus [3]
Category: Ranma 1/2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/F, F/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 13:07:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narsil/pseuds/Narsil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The interesting times continue, as Ranma and Akane both learn more than they wanted to, Gosunkugi tries again, and the Lost Boy returns!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Broken Dreams

Ranma spiraled down toward the Tendo dojo under a cloudy sky, her newly-discovered red-furred wings spread wide and a big grin on her face.

It had been a long day. After the confrontation with her father, her mother had spent time getting reacquainted with the Tendo sisters, then helped Kasumi prepare lunch. (That lunch had been _very_ tense, with Genma leaving the table as soon as possible.) Then Ranma (in his human form), Nabiki and Akane had helped Nodoka move as much of her furniture as would fit in the room Ranma and Genma had been sleeping in (not much), along with those possessions important enough to her mother that she didn’t want to leave them in an empty house.

One thing that _hadn’t_ migrated to Nodoka’s new home, however, was the little shrine she had created in honor of her son, and Ranma still felt a bubble of joy when she remembered her mother’s comment that she didn’t need a shrine now that she had the real thing. But while the shrine had remained behind, there was one thing missing from it — an envelope with a torn up seppuku contract. _That_ , Nodoka had burned in the kitchen sink as soon as she entered the house.

_And then, no sooner do we get everything set up in Mom’s room, then Nabs suggests that since she’ll be studying somethin’ with her magic, I should find out what my new wings can do. Interestin’ how it works — I can go a_ lot _faster, but there’s a new top limit and I’ll bet it’s the same as the old limit, an’ no matter how I push I won’t go faster. An’ it’s the same speed whether I go straight up or straight down. It’s like the wings aren’t grabbin’ the air at all. I’ll hafta ask Nabs what she thinks, if she can learn anything._

Ranma frowned at the thought of her fiancée, her joy in her newfound flight evaporating. _She’s worried about somethin’ — somethin’ she isn’t tellin’ me. Maybe it has ta do with when someone, how did she put it, ‘rang her bell’?_  The winged redhead slowed as she swept through the hazy barely-there roof of the dojo on her way to the furo — it wouldn’t do to be moving too fast when she reached it. _I trust Nabs, I just wish she trusted me as much as she loves me. Ah, well, she’ll tell me when she’s ready. And at least I got a chance ta find out what I can do and have some fun while I was at it, an’ more fun ta look forward to!_

/\

Nabiki stiffened where she knelt in the middle of a meticulous circle made out of chalk pasted to a large sheet of paper spread out on the floor of Nodoka’s new bedroom as she felt a nature spirit pass through her wards. Closing her eyes, she reached out with her empathic sense, relaxed as she felt the familiar mix that meant it was Ranma in a happy mood, only to freeze as she caught the threads of anticipation and nervousness mixed in. Opening her eyes, she looked over at her companion inside the circle. “Ranma’s home,” she announced.

Nodoka nodded. “Yes, I felt the nature spirit pass through the wards as well. Were you able to recognize Ranma when she passed through, or through your empathy?”

“Through my empathy,” Nabiki replied. “I think it’s getting stronger, walls used to block it. That could be a real problem down the road,” she added with a worried frown.

“Were you actively using your empathy when you sensed Ranma?” Nodoka asked.

Nabiki nodded.

“Have you ever picked up someone in another room without trying?” the older woman continued.

“No, I haven’t — not as individuals,” Nabiki said slowly, thinking back over the past week plus. “I’ve been picking up a general feel of an area — a mix of the emotions of everyone around me, but not individuals. Though that general feel can get pretty intense sometimes, I had some serious headaches before I learned to dial it down a few notches, and it still gets overpowering sometimes.”

“I wouldn’t worry yet,” Nodoka said. “When you start picking up specific people in other rooms rather than simply a general sense of the emotional environment it will be time to be concerned. Have you tried teaching your new emotional control to Ranma?”

“I ... no, I haven’t,” Nabiki admitted, shamefaced. “I’m not really sure how to teach it because I don’t really know how I did it, I’ve been busy with other things, trying to track down who attacked me, dealing with Genma, the Amazons —”

“There are always excuses, child, though I can understand the need to prioritize,” Nodoka broke in to say. “But you might consider taking time to pass on what you’ve learned to your fiancé even if you aren’t sure how it’s done. Ranma was hammered badly by the emotional currents of our confrontation with Genma this morning, and it probably won’t be the last time he — she — finds herself in such an emotionally charged atmosphere.”

“I will, at the first opportunity,” Nabiki agreed.

“Good. And with that, I think it’s time to help Kasumi with dinner,” Nodoka said, carefully rising to her feet to avoid tearing the paper she’d been sitting on. “Now that Ranma’s finally home, he and Akane will be having an abbreviated training session so we’d best get started.”

Nabiki hesitated for a moment at Nodoka’s assumption that the middle Tendo would help, then shrugged and rose to her feet as well. “I suppose we’ve accomplished enough for one afternoon,” she said, then after a moment added, “Nodoka ... thank you for showing me how to modify my wards to detect entities coming through them instead of just stopping a few types.”

“It was my pleasure,” Nodoka replied as she stepped off the paper to allow Nabiki to start rolling it up. “What you do know, you know very well, and what you don’t know you pick up quickly — not to mention some interesting innovations like this circle glued on paper. It will be a pleasure to have you as a student. Besides, you permitted me to integrate with those wards, it would be rude not to return the favor.

“But Nabiki, it’s ‘Mother’, not ‘Nodoka’. Or was your use of that title this morning a fluke?”

Nabiki stopped rolling up the circle for a long moment, before finally shaking her head. “Of course I let you integrate with the wards — this will be your home, how could I not? And no, it wasn’t a fluke ... Mother. But I’ve been alone so long — Kasumi’s tried, but ...” Her voice trailed off.

Carefully not mentioning how Nabiki had struggled to offer her access to the wards, Nodoka mused, “But you’ve been independent long enough that it’s hard to open up to others, right?” She smiled softly when Nabiki nodded jerkily, and the teenager shivered at the bittersweet joy radiating from the older woman. “Thank you for trusting me enough to make the effort. Now, let’s go help Kasumi.”

/oOo\

The dim light of an overcast evening sky came through the window of the bedroom Nabiki and Ranma would now share, falling across the nude bodies of the two teens on the bed. The muscular black-haired Ranma lay stretched out on his back, eyes closed as Nabiki crouched over his legs, her nipples brushing his legs as her mouth worked at his manhood. Even as she sucked on the limp member, her tongue caressing, her fingers were busy at her cleft between her spread legs, slurping deep into her sheath.

Finally, she sat up, resting her ass on her fiancé’s legs, doing her best to ignore the growing fear hammering at her from Ranma. “This isn’t working, love,” she said softly.

Ranma’s eyes opened, and the pageboy-haired girl winced at his fear-filled gaze. “This is what you’ve been scared of, isn’t it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Yes ... yes, I was afraid this would happen,” Nabiki reluctantly admitted, a deep breath thrusting her perky breasts up and out — not a hint of lust from Ranma at all, damn. “With my empathy I noticed that you weren’t reacting — weren’t attracted sexually — to anyone when you were a guy. I’d hoped that it was simply because of the way you can see through clothes when you’re a nature spirit, but it looks like I was wrong. I think — I think when you’re human you miss something you pick up as a nature spirit.”

“So what now? How do we fix it?” Ranma asked desperately.

“I ... I ... I don’t know if we can,” Nabiki whispered, leaning down to lay herself along his body, her breasts pressed against his chest, his arms instinctively circling her back. “It might be because of your empathy. If so, if you ever become an empath when human, that might fix it — but I have no idea how to make that happen, or even if it’ll help if it happens naturally.” Feeling the muscular form beneath her beginning to shiver, she hastily added, “Ranma, listen, eventually you’re going to get the ability to change into a guy when you’re a succubus. I know it didn’t work out this morning, but it’s inevitable.”

“When? How?” Ranma demanded bitterly, his shivering increasing, and Nabiki froze.

_There’s no way I can tell him — “When your nature drives you to collect some man’s sperm and use it to get a girl pregnant, probably me.” If he hears that, what’ll he_ do _?!_

She stiffened at a sudden thought, then pushed herself erect, once again sitting on Ranma’s legs. “Ranma, I have an idea. Close your eyes, and think back to our last feeding session,” she instructed. “Remember how you suckled at my tits, how your finger pumped up inside me, how much you enjoyed the taste of my juices when your mouth played with my pussy, how all my muscles locked up and it was all I could do to keep from screaming when I orgasmed....”

Ranma closed his eyes, and Nabiki held her breath as a slight smile appeared on his face. His manhood twitched, straightened, began to stretch and expand.... _Yes! It worked!_ she exulted. Hastily, she lifted her ass off his legs, shifted forward to position her cleft over his hardening rod. Sighing with relief as she felt the tip of his manhood caressing her still-wet folds, she reached down to position it then slowly sank downward, hissing in pleasure as she felt his rod sink deep into her depths. Slowly, she began to bounce on the pole that filled her like her fingers never had, her speed increasing as she moaned at the pleasure bursting through her with each lift and drop of her hips.

Ranma opened his eyes, smiling with relief and happiness at the sensation of wet heat tightly gripping his rampant manhood as he gazed up at his sweating fiancée’s pleasure-glazed eyes. But as he did, his memory of the previous night slipped away, and Nabiki mewed protest as she felt the rod filling her begin to soften and shrink. Desperately, Ranma clenched his eyes shut and fought to bring back the memories he had been enjoying. But the panic filling him disrupted his thoughts and soon his manhood slipped out of his lover’s cleft to flop onto the thick patch of curly pubic hair just above his legs.

Nabiki simply sat on Ranma’s hips for a long minute, eyes closed and quivering with the need for release, until the rising tide of despair and self-loathing filling her lover broke through her disappointment. Her eyes flying open, she looked down to find tears trickling from under Ranma’s eyelids and running down the sides of his head into his hair. “Ranma, I’m sorry, we almost did it, we can try again, I’ll try harder —” she babbled.

“That’s it, I’m never gonna be a man, be yer lover, be a father — nothin’ but a leech,” Ranma murmured, showing no sign that he even heard her attempts at reassurance. He opened his eyes and reached up to gently lift Nabiki off of his hips and set her to the side. She fell silent as he swung his legs over and sat up, then stood up and strode toward her desk. She shot upright when he picked up the glass of water beside the pitcher they had taken to keeping on her desk.

“Ranma, wait —” Nabiki shouted desperately, but the pigtailed boy ignored her and dumped the glass over his head. As she shrank and her hair flashed red before Nabiki’s horrified gaze, her new wings flashed out from the back of her shoulders, spread out, and even as Nabiki dove toward her the succubus shot through the ceiling and was gone.

/\

Behind the rosebush across the street from the Tendo compound, Gorash and its fellow imps settled in for another long, boring night. Its fear of unremitting boredom on first receiving the assignment from Mara had proven somewhat incorrect — ‘Ranko’s’ outing by Kuno in the school swimming pool, the fight with the Lost Boy, and first Xian Pu and then more Amazons showing up, the little chase that had happened just that morning (and a good thing Ranma had returned right away carrying her father, since the appearance of her wings had taken the imps completely by surprise) had all added some spice to things.  Still, surveillance was what it was, very long stretches of time where absolutely nothing was happening but the spies had to be constantly alert because that could change at any time. Like now.

Suddenly, light flashed at a spot toward the top of Nabiki’s and now Nodoka’s wards as the now very familiar naked busty red-haired nature spirit came through the dojo roof to flash through the wards at high speed, wings held in tight. She leveled off and turned east, heading away without slowing down.

Gorash nodded to one of the two imps with it. “Jalok, go, keep her in sight, let us know when she goes to ground.” The imp sprouted its own bat-wings and shot up after Ranma, as Gorash turned to the other. “Gishul, alert Mara that Ranma is on the move as she predicted.” The second imp stepped into shadows and vanished, and Gorash turned back toward the dojo. _And that will probably be all the excitement tonight — at least out here. I wonder what’s going on inside?_

/\

Akane quietly paced back and forth outside Nabiki’s bedroom. Pausing in front of the door, she lifted a hand to knock, hesitated, then dropped her hand and resumed her back-and-forth.

_They’ve been lying to me all along, I know they have, they owe me some answers! Even if they’re doing something perverted right now,_ she fumed, her mind again going over all the little niggling details she had done her best to ignore: the way Ranma and Nabiki ( _Nabiki_ , of all people) had just clicked and become practically inseparable, the moments that ‘Ranko’ had confused herself with Ranma. And then there was the showdown with ‘Uncle’ Genma this morning (Akane’s lips curled back in a snarl for a moment) when Ranma’s mother had clearly referred to ‘Ranko’ as Ranma — _Just how long_ has _Ranma been hanging around?_

Unbidden, the memory she had managed to suppress from days before Ranma and his father had arrived out of the rain rose in her mind, of a naked Nabiki sprawled on her bed, one hand pumping a dildo up between her spread legs, the other hand massaging a breast and _the other breast palpitating on its own_!

Whirling, she reached for the door, but froze with her hand on the knob at the sound of someone running up the stairs and down the hallway toward the girls’ rooms. Turning and stepping to the side, the youngest Tendo gaped as ‘Auntie’ Nodoka (she just couldn’t bring herself to refer to the dojo’s newest resident as ‘Mother’, whatever Kasumi did, not yet) came barreling into the T-intersection, yanked open Nabiki’s door, and charged through.

“Nabiki, was that Ranma I just felt go through the wards?” she heard the older woman demand.

“I ... yes, we tried to ... Ranma couldn’t perform, and he didn’t take it well when I told him he probably wouldn’t ever be able to. He activated the curse and flew out,” Nabiki responded.

“I thought you weren’t going to explain that until I was present ... Nabiki, that’s a summoning circle, what are you doing?”

“What does it look like? I’m calling Ranma back.”

“No, you aren’t. Considering why Ranma flew out of here, summoning her back might be the worst thing you could do — make it even clearer that she isn’t human anymore, not entirely. Give her some time to herself to calm down.”

“But Nodo — Mother — Ranma’s out there alone, it’s getting dark and maybe dangerous for her, and she’s hurting so much....”

“If Ranma’s not back by morning, _then_ we can summon her. But you have a point about the possible danger,” Nodoka agreed in a thoughtful tone. “Normally, between Ranma’s nature as a nature spirit and her martial arts training I wouldn’t worry — now that she has her wings, what she couldn’t outfight she could probably outrun. But as distraught as you say she is ... do you know any sprites?”

“ _Sprites?_ ... Yes, Kasumi’s friend, Cherry Blossom,” a confused-sounding Nabiki replied.

“Cherry Blossom? Good, I know her as well. Let’s offer to summon _her_ and ask her to find and keep an eye on Ranma for us.”

“But why a sprite?” Nabiki asked. “They aren’t exactly combat monsters.”

“ ... But they do have some sort of — not a group mind, they’re distinct individuals — an awareness of other sprites, they can pass messages to each other. So, Cherry Blossom can pass the word to the other sprites around here, and once they find Ranma they can let us know right away. That way we can keep an eye on Ranma without invading her privacy.”

For a moment no sound came from the bedroom, then Nabiki said uncertainly, “I guess that’ll work ... okay, let’s do it.”

Akane stared at her sister’s still-open door, her anger snuffed out, replaced by worry for the sensei she had reluctantly come to respect — some of the time, at least. _That did not sound good,_ she thought, and stepped forward only to pause, the familiar queasy feeling at the thought of the supernatural filling her to mix with her concern. _Yeah, and just what do you think you can do to help? It sounds like they’re doing what they can, leave them to it._ She turned away and quietly slipped down the hall to her own bedroom. _Anyway, they’re too busy to give you straight answers right now, you can ask them tomorrow,_ she thought as she pulled out some schoolbooks from her bag and set out to distract herself with her weekend homework assignments.


	2. A Crossroads Deal

From her shelter on a grassy embankment underneath a bridge, Ranma stared out at the pouring rain, her arms pulling her legs against her oversized breasts and her wings curled around her for comfort. The rain wasn’t pounding down, but it was the kind of rain that can go on for hours and had emptied the park beside the bridge of what few people the arrival of night would have left. Now, the only signs of life were a few tiny nature spirits that had flown past her spot underneath the bridge several minutes ago — she could still see their distinct nature spirit lifeglows now aimlessly wandering around the park grounds, apparently unconcerned about the cool wet.

Not that Ranma would normally have had any more concern than they had, the first of the rain had passed harmlessly through her before she had taken shelter. And while she could sense the coolness of the night, delight in it even, she couldn’t really _feel_ it. She idly thought that she wouldn’t have _felt_ it if the rain was replaced by a raging blizzard.

No, her instinctive search for shelter, the way she was curled around herself, had nothing to do with the elements and everything to do with the turmoil roiling in her heart.

_Not a man. Not a man. Not a man...._ The thought continually echoed through her mind, disrupting and overriding every other thought that tried to form. Then, another thought struck her: _If I’m not a man, what am I?_

Her eyes left the wandering nature spirits still flitting about and lifted up to search the night sky for any hint of the moon and stars — a hopeless task, of course, her old and until recently only real friends were completely obscured by the clouds. Disheartened at her failure, she dropped her face down against her knees. _A thing, that’s all. I’ve just been pretendin’ since Jusenkyo, good enough that I actually fooled myself — Nabiki and Mom, too. And Nabiki said I can’t act!_ Her bark of laughter was choked off by sobs, and tears ran down her cheeks and soaked her knees. _Are they real tears, or as fake as the rest a’ me?_ The idle thought passed through her grief and was gone.

“You look like you could use this.” The female voice jerked Ranma’s head up. Beside her was a tall (at least compared to Ranma, but who wasn’t?), young blonde woman with red elongated slashes tattooed on her forehead and another two red triangles on each cheek under her eyes. She was dressed in red leather, and in her outstretched hand was a handkerchief.

Without thinking Ranma reached out and took the handkerchief and wiped at her cheeks. “Thanks,” she said shakily, then froze — the cloth wasn’t alive, not a hint of life energy, no ki infusing it like Royga had with his thrown bandanas, and she was holding it! Her eyes shot back to the stranger and widened as she realized she wasn’t able to see through her clothing, either. And the woman was completely dry!

Forcing herself to relax, Ranma handed the cloth back, then nonchalantly rose to her feet to hover a few inches above the grassy embankment and focused the senses she was still learning to understand on the stranger that had intruded on her angstfest. Again, her eyes widened for a moment before she fought her expression back under control, because she sensed — nothing. Nothing at all, as if the person before her didn’t exist. But she had to, she’d handed her the handkerchief, the one Ranma had been able to touch!

But while Ranma couldn’t sense anything substantial, she was catching a hint of ... of something, almost familiar ... just an echo, but it made her feel like she needed a bath. Where had she sensed this before ... ? And then her mind flashed back to Dr. Tofu’s office, the manic doctor taking bites out of a plate brought by a despair-ridden Kasumi, and the dark, ugly, slimy aura linking the two.

Ranma found herself taking a step back and forced herself to stop. Casually clasping her hands behind her back, she bluntly asked, “Who are you? _What_ are you?”

The woman’s eyebrows rose. “And why do you think I’m anything but what I appear?”

“ ‘Cause ya handed me a piece a cloth I could touch; I can’t see through yer clothes; other than my eyes, I can’t tell you’re even there; and ya stink.”

The woman stiffened for a moment, tattooed cheek twitching, then she relaxed muscle by muscle and pasted on a smile. “My name’s Mara, and I’m a demon,” she said cheerily.

“Yeah, I thought so. Good ta know what demons smell like. So what are ya doin’ here?”

Mara’s smile stiffened, just short of a snarl, and a deep indrawn breath hissed between her teeth. She paused for a long moment, exhaled, then finally said, “Why, I’m here to make you an offer, of course.”

Mara kept her gaze fixed on the face of the naked, and incredibly cute, red-haired nature spirit floating in front of her — however much the demon would have normally enjoyed the sight on display, now would be a _very_ bad time to let her eyes wander. Likewise, she kept her smile firmly in place in spite of the two words Ranma had just used that had her seething: ‘stink’ and ‘smell’. _Remember, this offensive little hottie might be the key to Nabiki, do_ not _mess this up!_

“What kinda offer?” Ranma asked, her posture screaming suspicion. “Just what can ya do fer me — get rid a’ the Jusenkyo curse? And just how will that help me now? It’s too late!”

“No, I can’t remove the curse, it’s too powerful — a set part of your destiny,” Mara replied with a shake of her head. “But I wouldn’t remove it even if I could. Without it, you’re just one more mortal, however skilled a martial artist you might be for your age. With it, the combination of your martial arts skills and the capabilities your cursed form gives you make you a unique, versatile agent, able to go places demons can’t with a broad range of options when you get there. Besides,” she continued, ignoring Ranma’s confused look, “you’re right that as things stand there’s no point — you’d still be incapable of having sex in your human form.”

“So if ya can’t get rid a’ the curse and ya can’t fix me, what have ya got ta offer?” Ranma asked despondently.

“I didn’t say we couldn’t fix you, just that removing the curse wouldn’t do it,” Mara said. _Gotcha!_ she thought as the succubus brightened. “We can — and if you swear loyalty to me, we will.”

“How?” Ranma asked eagerly, drifting slowly toward the demon, but Mara shook her head, her smile turning into a grin.

“ _That_ would be telling,” she said, her smile broadening. “If you join me, _then_ I tell you about it.”

“Alright, alright, what do I gotta do?” Ranma asked.

Mara offered her hand to the succubus. “Just take my hand and repeat what I say,” she instructed.

Ranma was reaching out her hand when they heard a high-pitched voice. “Ranma, there you are!”

The succubus and demon whirled, and Mara felt her heart sink at the sight of the tiny insect-winged naked blonde sprite hovering a few yards away. _Not Cherry Blossom, not now!_ she wailed silently to herself even as she carefully put on a cool, disinterested expression.

“And Mara!” the sprite continued. “And being naughty, too. You know the rules, demons leave nature spirits alone and nature spirits leave demons alone.”

Making a serious effort to _not_ grind her teeth, Mara replied calmly, “Ranma isn’t a nature spirit, so the truce doesn’t apply.”

“Oh, really?” Cherry Blossom responded cheerfully, and flew toward Ranma. She slowly circled the redhead, starting at the feet and spiraling upward, flicking a red nipple in passing and giggling when Ranma blushed and jerked backward, before finally coming to a stop a few inches from Ranma’s nose. She giggled again when Ranma went crosseyed trying to look at her, then crossed one arm under her pert breasts and tapped on her lips with the fingers of the other. “I don’t know,” the tiny blonde mused thoughtfully. “She sure looks like a nature spirit to me. _Feels_ like one, too.”

“You know very well Ranma’s a human cursed to turn into a succubus,” Mara growled, tempted to simply blast the little annoyance into oblivion. She could explain it to Ranma somehow, somehow explain to Hild how the sprite died so it wouldn’t be a violation of the truce ... and then she caught sight of several other sprites out of the corner of her eye, watching the proceedings from a dozen yards away. _Damn!_

“Oh, so she’s _both_ a human and a nature spirit!” Cherry Blossom burbled, circling Ranma’s head. “Goodie, that means we both get to play!” Then, settling on Ranma’s shoulder, she said in a stage whisper, “You know, you’re awfully cute when you blush.

“Anyway,” she continued in her normal bubbly tone, flying off Ranma’s shoulder to again hover in front of her fellow nature spirit, “I’m not actually just passing by. Nabiki and Nodoka summoned me and asked me to look for you. They’re really worried about you, and Kasumi will be, too, when she finds out how you took off. We don’t want to worry Kasumi, do we?”

Ranma soundlessly shook her head.

“Good, so why don’t you finish up your business here, and we can head back and brighten her day.” The tiny sprite waved toward Mara, and Ranma turned back toward the demon, her mind whirling under the sprite’s verbal onslaught. There had been something in the middle of that torrent of words that had rung an alarm, something about Kasumi ... and even as she reached out a hand she felt — something — brush across her, something ... slimy ... like she had felt from Kasumi at Tofu’s clinic.

Yanking her hand back, Ranma glared suspiciously at Mara. “And just what would I hafta do, if I sign on? A martial artist protects the innocent and weak. Is that what you’d want me ta do?”

Mara suppressed a wince. Dropping her renewed smile, she said soberly, “No. We demons feel that the best defense is a good offense — we seek out those deserving of punishment and see that they get it.”

“People like Kasumi?” Ranma demanded.

“Kasumi? You mean Tendo Kasumi?”

“Yeah, _that_ Kasumi,” Ranma snarled. “Sure, she doesn’t really like what me and Nabiki are doing, but she’s treated me great anyway. An’ Doc Tofu’s a good guy, too. She an’ the doc don’t deserve ta be cursed by some demon so he acts like a maniac whenever she’s around. If that’s what ya consider ‘seeking out those that deserve punishment’, then ya can kiss off!”

Mara stared as Ranma spread her wings and began to fly away, stunned by how abruptly everything had fallen apart. Shaking herself free of the shock, she called out to the angry succubus. “Ranma! If you change your mind just call my name, I’ll answer as soon as I can!” There was no reply, as the Mara watched Ranma disappear into the night sky.

She stared at the empty sky for several minutes, then shook herself and walked across the park to a grove of trees. As she approached, Calise stepped out of the treeline. “Well, _that_ could have gone better,” her friend said sympathetically.

“No kidding!” Mara snarled. She paused and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and holding it for a long moment, then sighed. “I didn’t really expect Ranma to agree, not at first,” she admitted to her friend. “I was just laying the groundwork for later, I hadn’t realized just how important Ranma’s manhood is to him ... her ... whatever. But it was going so well! And then that blithering, crafty little _bitch_ had to go and stick her nose in....”

“You do have to admit this ... situation ... doesn’t fit our truce with the nature spirits very well,” Calise pointed out, then hesitantly continued, “You really didn’t know about Kasumi and Tofu?”

“No, I didn’t. You did?”

“Yes, it was in Tofu’s file,” Calise admitted, then suddenly stiffened. “But it wasn’t in Kasumi’s file! Oh, shit, someone screwed up the cross-referencing, and I missed it! I’m sorry, Mara —”

“Not your fault,” Mara said, waving off her apology. “Or at least not your job, you’re just helping out in your off-hours. I can’t read the file for every person Ranma meets, but I should have read Dr. Tofu’s after Ranma visited the second time, at the latest — he is an old friend of the Tendos, after all, and he’s mentioned in both Akane’s and Kasumi’s files especially. Just too many cases, I guess, maybe I should hand some of the less important ones off.”

She shrugged, winced, and rotated her shoulders, trying to loosen up stiff muscles, then sighed blissfully when Calise stepped behind her and started to massage the back of her shoulders. “Ohhh, that feels good. Anyway, taking a look at my caseload’s for later. Did Jalok follow her?”

Calise nodded as her hands worked their magic. “Yes, it took off like a bat out of hell —” She broke off, chuckling. “I’ve always liked that phrase, however did the English come up with it? Anyway, when Ranma flew off it followed her. But I don’t know if it’ll catch her, a couple of sprites took off after it when it left.”

“Wonderful. Just ... wonderful. Sprites aren’t the most stable of nature spirits, who knows what they’ll do if they catch it? I really hope this doesn’t blow up into another war, we _really_ don’t need that right now.”

Regretfully, Mara stepped away, breaking off her friend’s attentions. “Let’s head home, it sounds like I need to report Cherry Blossom’s interference, and then get some more files to read while waiting for Jalok to report in.”

/oOo\

Jalok desperately scanned the wet steel and concrete jungle that surrounded it as it slowly flew down the street through the steady rain several stories above the ground. Not a hint, not a sign. When the imp had flown off after the angry succubus that had blown off Mara, Jalok had quickly found that it wasn’t as fast as Ranma at full speed. Still, it had been pretty close and had been losing ground slowly while keeping her in sight — until the succubus reached the taller buildings of downtown Tokyo. It had lost sight of her immediately, and almost worse the way that it had to slow down to search meant its pursuers —

Sensing the next attack run coming in, Jalok desperately spread its wings, braking hard, and a sprite flashed across in front of it, slightly below where it would have been. Then Jalok was desperately rolling to the side and dropping and a split second later the second one streaked through where it had stopped, missing it by a hair. _That was close!_ Jalok thought even as it plastered itself against the side of a skyscraper, eyes trying to follow two circling sprites at once. _He wasn’t trying to hit me so it probably wouldn’t have been a violation of the treaty if he had, but still ..._

Keeping against the wall, Jalok resumed its flight along the block, eyes scanning the buildings on the opposite side of the street while simultaneously keeping an eye on the two sprites keeping pace with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title comes from the old folklore about the natural place to make a deal with the Devil, referenced in the third verse of one of my favorite songs, "Sugar Cane" by Ray Wylie Hubbard. The relevant lyrics are:
> 
> I heard it told, I ain't seen it myself,  
> I guess it could be a lie.  
> Come to believe it's the gospel truth,  
> So help my hope to die.  
> If you want a little more of what this old world's got  
> And you don't care what you lose,  
> Go down to the crossroads and make a little deal  
> And get you some delta blues.


	3. The Voice

Ranma slashed through the rainy night, wings tucked in close for speed, quickly leaving the low, translucent houses of Nerima behind along with the faintly glowing naked people that occupied them. _That_ bitch _! How dare she offer ... offer ... and try ta get me ta be her enforcer! I’d be no better than those thugs that were always with the guys that would try ta get Pop ta work for ‘em._ Ranma reluctantly chuckled as she remembered one time several years before when a crime boss had tried kidnapping him for leverage against his father. That day had been one of the more fun ones of his life, as he’d led hopelessly outclassed thugs and punks on an impromptu game of hide, seek and ambush. Though Genma had decided to move on rather abruptly after he’d learned about it.

_Whoa!_ Ranma’s wings snapped open as she hastily rolled to avoid the skyscraper that suddenly loomed up in front of her. Even as the building flashed past her, Ranma was shaking her head. _Idiot! You’re a succubus — you’d have gone right through. Solid isn’t solid to ya anymore, remember? Though that one wasn’t as see-through as the buildings in Nerima, must be the concrete an’ steel._

She threaded her way among the other tall translucent buildings abruptly surrounding her, a quick experiment reaching out a hand as she skimmed past one building showing they were no more solid to her than dead wood and plaster board.  Still, it didn’t feel right to just blow through them — and especially, Ranma steered wide of the occasional glowing wards indicating someone that knew something of magic.  None of the wards felt ... uninviting, but the last thing she wanted right now was to deal with people that might be able to see her nude body, however cute Nabiki might tell her she looked. _Especially_ considering how cute Nabiki told her she looked. Especially since the people she could see indicated that at least some of the buildings, almost all the ones that were occupied, were apartments.

With the need to do something besides fly in a straight line combined with the shock of her near non-collision having interrupted her seething inward rant, Ranma found her anger fading — Mara was a demon, after all, Ranma was supposed to be upset that she acted like one? And with her anger fading, the melancholy from earlier came rushing back. With a sigh, she found an empty apartment far from any of the wards. It was several stories up with a small tree on the balcony and a wonderful view of the city. Pulling in her wings, Ranma settled down on a branch to contemplate her bleak future.

“Wow, now _that_ was a ride!”

Ranma was out of the tree and five feet away floating over the drop to the street, facing the apartment and in a defensive stance that would have been effective, if she’d been on the ground multiple stories below, if she’d actually been able to _touch_ the ground, or had any weight when she did.

Sitting on a branch of the tree was the nature spirit that had interrupted Mara’s attempt to recruit her, a broad smile across her face. The tiny nude blonde slipped off the branch, holding on with one hand, and flipped back up and around so that she was dangling below the branch with her legs across the top, again facing Ranma with the smile still firmly in place. “You can really pile on the speed when you want,” she enthused. “And the way you flipped around when you almost hit the building, wheeeeeee! Good thing you did, too — you might have gone right through, I wouldn’t have. Perhaps hitching a ride wasn’t the smartest thing, after all,” she finished, her smile slipping into a thoughtful look.

“You ... you said Mom and Nabs sent ya,” Ranma managed to get out. Noticing her stance, and how much it revealed, she blushed and nonchalantly shifted to one she _thought_ would work with her succubus body. “Who are you?”

“Oh, I didn’t introduce myself, bad girl! I’m Cherry Blossom. Want to be friends?” Dropping free of the branch without waiting for an answer, the sprite flew over to circle around Ranma, then settled on her shoulder. “You know, any empath worthy of the name that met you just now would have doubts about your nature spiritness — at least, any that knew nature spirits. I’ve never known one to be as depressed as you were, or depressed at all — humans, gods, demons, sure, but not nature spirits. So tell Auntie Cherry all about it, maybe she can help!”

Even through the grey despond settling on her yet again now that she was over her shock, Ranma couldn’t help chuckling at the sheer bubbly cheerfulness Cherry Blossom brought to everything she said. Drifting back over to the tree she had just vacated, the succubus once again settled on her earlier branch and looked out across the lights of the nighttime city. Why not? Cherry Blossom _was_ a friend of her lover and mother so she probably knew a lot of it already, it couldn’t hurt. “Well, I guess it started when my idiot of a father decided to take a training trip through China with a guidebook over a century old....”

/\

“... and so that’s it — no kids, no future, just a parasite suckin’ off a’ people,” Ranma finished up.

Cherry Blossom, once again hovering in front of Ranma on the tree branch, shook her head, actually somewhat sober. “No kids, no future, a parasite? Wow, being ‘manly’ must be _really_ important to you, if you can just ignore everything the Voice is telling you,” the sprite mused, one hand’s fingers tapping her lower lip.

“What voice?” Ranma asked.

Cherry Blossom froze, dropping when her wings stopped buzzing. Recovering within a few feet, she swooped back up to hover a few inches away from the succubus’s face. “You can’t hear the Voice?” she asked, suddenly dead serious.

Ranma shook her head.

“But that doesn’t make sense!” the sprite objected. “Every nature spirit hears the Voice, it’s the first thing we’re aware of when ... when we’re born. But you _weren’t_ born as a nature spirit, were you?’

Ranma shook her head again.

“Wow ... oh, wow. No wonder ...” Cherry Blossom flew over and once again settled on Ranma’s shoulder, sliding an arm under the succubus’s loose hair. “All this time you’ve been dealing with a succubus’s needs and instincts and the wrong body, and you don’t even know what it’s all _about_ ... no wonder you’re depressed, I’m surprised you’re still sane!” She leaned her head against Ranma’s ear, rubbing her hand up and down along the back of her neck.

After a few minutes, the sprite bounced off the shoulder, flipping around to hover in front of Ranma’s face and trying to stretch the redhead’s mouth into a smile. “Well, it’s an easy enough problem to fix,” she cheerily asserted. “We just need to get you in contact with your outer self!”

“Okay, how? What’s the Voice?” Ranma asked.

“The Voice is ... well, it’s ... it’s ...” Cherry Blossom shrugged. “I really don’t know how to explain it — it’s everything. It’ll be easier to get you to hear it than for me to explain it. You’re a martial artist, aren’t you? Don’t martial artists go in for all that meditation stuff?”

“Well ... some, yeah, but Pop never ... well, why not?” Pulling her feet up into something resembling the lotus position and keeping just enough of a grip on the branch to hold herself in place, Ranma closed her eyes and tried to follow the instructions from the last sensei that had taught him meditation techniques. At first, her worries consumed her, images of the dark future she had imagined playing across her mind’s eye. But the hope Cherry Blossom had offered gave the succubus strength, and eventually she managed to set them aside, to seek out the peace of no-thought. Slowly, the noises of the nighttime city faded and time seemed to fade with it.

“RANMA!”

The redhead jerked, losing her hold on the branch and drifting away. She shook her head a little. How could such a tiny ... person shout so loud? Sure, her mouth must have practically been _in_ the redhead’s ear, but still — “What?” Ranma asked, exasperated, turning to find the little nuisance recovering from where the succubus’s jerk had thrown her. “I was doin’ what ya suggested —”

“Yes, and quite nicely, too, Nabiki’s got you well trained,” Cherry Blossom replied with a saucy wink, then giggled when Ranma blushed. “But it wasn’t working.” Hastily, she asked, “Just what were you doing? _Something_ was happening, I had to almost shout out a lung to get you to wake up!”

“The usual stuff,” Ranma replied, “not thinkin’ of anything, losing personal awareness, shutting out outside distractions —”

“That’s it!” the sprite enthused. “You were shutting out any chance of hearing the Voice — it isn’t inside you, it’s all around you! So what you need to do is lose that personal awareness, not think of anything, but _embrace_ the outside world, not shut it out!”

Ranma moved back yet again to ‘sit’ on ‘her’ branch, and looked uncertainly at her self-appointed friend. “Okay-y-y-y ...” she said slowly. Once again pulling her feet up into a semi-lotus, she closed her eyes.

“Wait!” Cherry Blossom shouted.

A now increasingly frustrated Ranma opened her eyes and glared at her diminutive companion. “ _What?_ ” she half-snarled.

“Ranma, I really think you need to do this, but be careful,” an abruptly serious Cherry Blossom replied. “The Voice is really ... seductive. Remember how I said it’s the first thing every nature spirit is aware of?” Ranma nodded. “Well, a lot of newborn nature spirits get swept away and never break loose.”

“Uh ... what happens to those that can’t break loose?” Ranma asked hesitantly.

“They starve to death if something doesn’t eat them or a dark Initiate doesn’t grab them for potion components,” Cherry Blossom said, her abruptly grim face somehow out of place on a nude little package that Ranma was suddenly aware was _very_ cute even as it shone with life. “Oooh, your aura just got some pink,” the sprite added with a giggle, then struck a _very_ sensual pose, spoiled only slightly by the way she bobbled while hovering in place. “And now it’s red, how nice, you like me! Too bad you’re so big, and Nabiki would probably object. Ah, well ... now onward!”

Shaking her head in bemusement, Ranma closed her eyes. _Okay, how do I do this? Gotta let go but stay aware ..._ Again, she released her worries — the original fears more easily this time, the newly acquired fears with more difficulty — and sought no-thought. But this time, instead of seeking to block out awareness of the outside world, she embraced it, melded with it, let each individual noise, moist rain-scent and sensation mix together, until they merged into an indistinguishable chorus.

Suddenly, the chorus swelled, bursting, ballooning into incomprehensible complexity, and Ranma felt her awareness explode outward to become a part of all around her — the weeds springing up through cracked concrete reaching for the sun as they sank their roots into the earth, competing with the other plants for light, water and nutrients; the insects, arachnids, lizards, birds in a dance of predator and prey as they instinctively fought for life and continuance; the smaller mammals, rats, cats, dogs, pampered pets in warmth and comfort or ragged survivors of the streets finding shelter where they could; the larger animals in sea and on land, loving, hating, being born, competing, birthing, dying.

And the people, everywhere — angry, happy, sad, content, blissful, courageous, fearful, lustful, those drifting from day to day and those dream-driven, striving ever for more, driving up and out.

And through them all, the nature spirits moved, nurturing the growing things and nurtured in turn, delighting in the energy-filled life all around them and driving it on to greater heights even as they competed with each other for place and strength.

Even among the humans the spirits of life flourished, feeding on the power of intelligence-back dreams and passions and pushing them on in turn, thrusting humanity ever higher until even the stars were not too high a mark to strive for as the mingled chorus of all that lived drove them on and up, up and outward ...

... and Ranma slammed back into a body that suddenly felt much too limited, too constricting, too ... small. She opened her eyes to find herself with arms and legs wrapped around the branch she had been sitting on, desperately drawing in shuddering breaths she didn’t need. Slowly, she forced herself to relax and sat up. “Wow!” she gasped, “that was ... was ...”

“Indescribable?” the cute blonde sprite suddenly hovering in front of her again asked. For just a moment Ranma thought she caught a hint of relief before Cherry Blossom’s face lit up with its usual saucy cheerfulness.

“Yeah ... I mean, the whole _world_ ...” Ranma fumbled for words, and the sprite’s face softened.

“Yes, I know ... I know,” she murmured. “And you can still hear it, can’t you? Like a constant echo in the back of your mind, a chorus that never ends and never repeats, and that will never leave you.” At Ranma’s slow nod, Cherry Blossom perked up. “Good, welcome to the World! And in all that, did you learn what you are, _why_ you are?”

“No, I didn’t —” The succubus broke off, gaping, as she realized she lied. Somehow, in the midst of everything she _had_ picked out her own kind, followed them, the tens of thousands born yearly only to flicker out like wind-blown candles, the very few that survived to flit about among the sea of people in Europe and wherever that continent’s children had settled, haunting dreams and making them wonderful, pushing people together, giving them courage to seek the companionship they thirsted after, holding them together in ties of passion through good times and bad, occasionally through the borrowed seed of men, infused with the succubae’s nature, giving humanity men and women of power and sometimes wisdom to provide leadership and guidance.

“Yes, I see you did, good,” Cherry Blossom murmured. “Whatever happens, that’ll never leave you. So, now that that’s settled ...” The sprite flew over to hover by the ear she’d blasted with a shout earlier. “ _Nabiki_ ,” she whispered. “She’s back at home, and scared for you. Don’t you think it’s time you did something about that?”

“Nabiki! Oh damn, I didn’t even think ... the way I just blew out of there, I gotta get back! Um ...” Ranma looked around at the semi-translucent buildings surrounding them. “Where _am_ I, exactly?”

Cherry Blossom giggled again. “Come on, I’ll take you home.” With that, she buzzed up and away into the soft, misty rain, with Ranma quickly following her unique life spark into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title, and initial inspiration for this aspect of nature spirits, comes from the song by Celtic Woman. The Voice is the counterpart of Yggdrasil and Nidhogg for nature spirits, to put them on something like equal standing with Asgard and Nifflheim without requiring a central organization. And yes, it has a number of limitations that will be explored later on.
> 
> I hear your voice on the wind  
> And I hear you call out my name
> 
> "Listen, my child," you say to me  
> "I am the voice of your history  
> Be not afraid, come follow me  
> Answer my call, and I'll set you free"
> 
> I am the voice in the wind and the pouring rain  
> I am the voice of your hunger and pain  
> I am the voice that always is calling you  
> I am the voice, I will remain
> 
> I am the voice in the fields when the summer's gone  
> The dance of the leaves when the autumn winds blow  
> Ne'er do I sleep thoughout all the cold winter long  
> I am the force that in springtime will grow
> 
> I am the voice of the past that will always be  
> Filled with my sorrow and blood in my fields  
> I am the voice of the future, bring me your peace  
> Bring me your peace, and my wounds, they will heal
> 
> I am the voice in the wind and the pouring rain  
> I am the voice of your hunger and pain  
> I am the voice that always is calling you  
> I am the voice
> 
> I am the voice of the past that will always be  
> I am the voice of your hunger and pain  
> I am the voice of the future  
> I am the voice, I am the voice  
> I am the voice, I am the voice!


	4. First Time

In the middle upstairs bedroom of the Tendo home, a pageboy-haired girl dressed in T-shirt and panties twisted on her bed, trying to find a comfortable position. She failed miserably, and sat up with a sigh, knowing full well that the problem wasn’t inside her mattress but inside her. Nabiki turned in the dark to stare out her window into the rain-misted night, fighting the near-panic that rose again at the sight. _Come on, ‘Nabs’, you_ know _Ranma isn’t bothered by weather when she’s a succubus. You know she rejected whatever offer that demon made her, Night Flower told us as much! Cherry Blossom is with her, the way that bubbly sprite acts it just isn’t_ possible _to stayed depressed around her, Ranma will be fine, she’ll be here in no time, back to her usual optimistic, I-can-handle-anything self._

But it had been hours since Night Flower had told them about Cherry Blossom finding their lost sheep — before the sprite had gotten distracted by Kasumi’s garden — and Nabiki had found it impossible to concentrate on schoolwork, on reviewing her threat files (her blackmail files, before she’d had to explain them to Ranma), or her manga.  She’d finally given up and gone to bed, and now that wasn’t working out, either.

Suddenly metaphysical light visible only to a few flared outside her window, and Nabiki whirled, looking up at the dark ceiling as she felt two nature spirits pass through her wards above the house.

/\

Ranma barely noticed the flare of light as she and Cherry Blossom passed through her lover’s and mother’s wards, and didn’t notice Cherry Blossom pealing off toward the side of the house at all — all the succubus’s attention was focused on the earth-haired girl that had whirled to look up toward her through the translucent roof. Then Ranma was passing through that roof and the ceiling beneath it, only to falter for a moment, blanching, as a wave of relief, guilt, joy, fear, anger and love slammed into her. Recovering, pushing through the emotional onslaught, she dropped toward Nabiki’s widespread arms, and her lover pulled her into an embrace that would have had her gasping for air if she needed to breathe. Her own arms circled the Tendo and for several minutes the only sounds in the room were Ranma’s murmurs of comfort and apology and Nabiki’s gasping, shuddering breath.

Finally, the shudders traveling through Nabiki’s body slowed, then vanished, and her breathing and grip eased off until one arm dropped to circle Ranma’s waist while the other reached up to stroke her lover’s loose scarlet tresses. “Enough, Ranma,” she murmured, breaking into the succubus’s continued monologue. “I’m fine, and you have nothing to be sorry for, you didn’t do anything wrong. Well, except for charging off into the night, that is,” she added, pulling back enough to look into Ranma’s brilliant blue eyes. “The next time you get like that, at least let me hold you while you work it out!”

Now that the emotional tsunami had receded, Ranma felt the sheer joy and awe of her vision bubbling up to the surface again on a rising chorus. Grinning, she said, “There isn’t gonna be a next time.”  She tilted her head up and pulled Nabiki into a kiss that had the Tendo gasping for breath. Breaking off, Ranma laid her head back on Nabiki’s shoulder, giggling at the stupefied lust Nabiki was now radiating.

Suddenly, the lust vanished to be replaced by worry. Nabiki put her hands on Ranma’s shoulders and pushed them apart to arm’s length, staring into the redhead’s face through narrow eyes. “Ranma, what happened?  What’s _wrong_ with you?” she asked. “I mean, you aren’t just reconciled, you’re positively giddy!”

“I’m fine, really, I feel great!” Ranma caroled. Breaking away from Nabiki’s grip, she lifted off into the middle of the room and pirouetted in place. Stopping her spins, she giggled at Nabiki’s wide-eyed stare. “Actually, I think I’m drunk,” she added conspiratorially before rolling into a head-over-heels twirl, dancing to the chorus sweeping through her.

“Ranma, get down here, please,” an increasingly concerned Nabiki requested. When the redhead stopped spinning and settled down in her lap again, she asked, “Drunk on what? You can’t drink.”

“On life,” came Nodoka’s response from the doorway.

In a flash Ranma was out of Nabiki’s lap and across the room, her arms around her mother. “I’m sorry I scared you, it won’t happen again,” she said softly.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, dear,” Nodoka retorted softly.  She ignored the feel of skin on skin where their breasts pressed together to return the hug with a smile and a kiss on the cheek, and a brush of love across her daughter’s soul. “All children frighten their parents on a fairly regular basis. Now, why don’t you rejoin your fiancée? I suspect she could use your company more than I.”

Ranma obeyed, snuggling down in Nabiki’s warm lap with a soft sigh as she luxuriated in the aura of love and lust radiating from her lover. Nodoka seated herself in the chair by the desk. As Ranma made herself comfortable in Nabiki’s arms, the older girl looked up at her new sensei in the occult. “You said Ranma’s drunk on life? How is that possible? Is it a succubus thing?”

“No, Nabiki-chan, it’s a nature spirit thing,” Nodoka replied, and gave a quick explanation of the Voice and its impact.

As she finished her explanation, Nabiki stared down at her snuggling companion in awe. “You saw _everything_?” she demanded.

“Mhmm, though I can’t remember it all, just too much. But what a ride!” Ranma replied with a giggle. “But I remember one thing — why I couldn’t make myself change inta a guy.”

“Why?” Nabiki asked after a moment when Ranma seemed to drift off.

“Why? Oh! It’s ‘cause a’ how succubae are made — born without a grown-up succubus around ta teach ‘em anything. Means it’s all instinct-driven. It’ll show up when I need it, just like the wings.”

Nabiki stiffened in shock, and Ranma shifted uncomfortably at the fear and guilt suddenly radiating from her fiancée even as Nabiki’s grip tightened. “Ranma ... you know what you’ll have to ... how new succubae are made?”

“Ya mean the whole get the sperm from a guy, add my own bit ta the mix, then get some girl pregnant? Yeah, I saw it all.”

“And you’re all right with this?”

“Sure — it’s what I am,” Ranma replied, looking up quizzically at Nabiki’s intent gaze and adding, “though ya can forget the part about abandonin’ my kids ta mostly die, not happenin’.”

Her fiancée gazed down at her for a long moment, then looked up worriedly at Nodoka. “Mother — sensei — as happy as I am that Ranma isn’t freaking out about this, is this ... this giddy complacency ... normal?”

“No, Nabiki, it isn’t — not most of the time, at least,” Nodoka replied. Rising from her seat, she knelt beside the two sitting on the bed. “Ranma,” she said softly, “I know it’s wonderful, what the Voice gives you. But do you remember what Cherry Blossom told you about how many newly-born nature spirits get swept away by the Voice and never recover?” When Ranma nodded, she continued, “There’s another danger — the Voice is seductive, addictive; the urge to constantly let it wash through you, to dance to its music is always there. But there are dangers out in the world for nature spirits as much as for humans, and if you are constantly focused on the Voice without a care for your safety, you will soon be dead. So please, for Nabiki and me, push the Voice into the background — turn down the volume.”

Ranma hesitated, and Nabiki’s arms tightened at the near-panic that swept through the redhead, displacing the giddy delight. “But ... but Mom ... if I block it out, what if I can’t find it again? I can’t lose this, I can’t!”

Nodoka shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way. The most you will be able to do is reduce the Voice to a whisper — always there, but in the background. And you don’t need to always keep the volume that low.” Glancing up at Nabiki, she said, “Student, since you didn’t know about the Voice, I assume you don’t know why Kasumi’s gardening has become so popular with nature spirits?”

Nabiki frowned in thought, thinking back over the last months, then her eyes widened in realization. “You’re right, there _have_ been a lot more nature spirits hanging around, how did I miss that?”

Ranma giggled. “Ya were too busy makin’ real enemies by blackmailin’ maybe-enemies,” she said.

Nabiki’s eyes dropped as Nodoka chuckled.  “Well, yes, there is that,” the Tendo sister muttered.

“Yes, anyway,” Nodoka said, forcing down her chuckles, “after our meeting a few days ago I asked around, and the reason why so many nature spirits are stopping by here now is you, student — or rather, your wards. They know from experience that you have no interest in binding nature spirits into servitude or killing them for potion ingredients, and within your wards they’re safe from others that will. So they come here to — I believe the phrase is ‘cut loose’, let the Voice sweep them away for awhile, dance to the full chorus.” With a laugh, she added, “I’m afraid that thanks to you, the Tendo Dojo has become Party Central for fun-seeking nature spirits!”

The two teenagers joined in the laughter. When it eventually died down, Ranma said, “So you’re sayin’ ta save the full experience fer when I’m home, an’ tune it out when I’m away?”

“More than that, dearest — only let yourself go when you aren’t doing anything else. You still have Akane’s training and your own studies, both the Art and school. And then there’s your time with Nabiki — it’s hard to have a real connection with someone when most of your attention is somewhere else.”

Eventually, Ranma reluctantly nodded. “Okay,” she muttered, and closed her eyes.

Outwardly nothing happened, but Nabiki felt the giddiness radiating from the girl in her arms slowly fade, morphing into an almost serene soft joy that she could barely sense. When Ranma again opened her eyes, Nabiki smiled down at her. “Welcome back, love,” she whispered.

Nodoka smiled wistfully as the two teenagers lost themselves in each other, and rose to her feet. “I think we’ve talked about this enough tonight, and it’s way past this old woman’s bedtime. We’ll discuss the demoness who propositioned you tomorrow.” Waving aside the instant protests that she wasn’t old, she headed for the bedroom door. In the doorway she paused, turning back for a moment. “But while I may be old — or at least older — you two aren’t. And tonight isn’t a school night — enjoy.” Then she was gone, Nabiki listening to her footsteps receding down the hall toward her room as Ranma watched her through the barely visible walls.

Finally Nabiki sighed in contentment, then smiled down at the red-haired cutie cuddling in her arms. “So, ready to call it a night and meet me in my dreams? Or should we take your mother’s advice and feed you first?” she asked softly.

Ranma stirred, then turned to smile up at her fiancée. “Neither,” she said. “I got a better idea.” Reaching over, she took one of Nabiki’s hands from around her waist and lifted it, guiding it up to place it over a large, firm breast. “Why don’t _you_ ‘feed’ for a change?” she whispered, then giggled at the sudden uptick in the lust radiating from her lover.

The hand Ranma had placed on her breast trembled slightly even as Nabiki sucked in a breath. This was _not_ a good idea, when Ranma went human he wouldn’t have the Voice for support, she was under the Voice’s influence right now, if only a little. But the Voice wasn’t going to go away and Ranma had to adjust to the demands and impulses of his nature spirit form sometime — and the cute, sexy bundle in Nabiki’s arms wasn’t the only one that got ‘hungry’ sometimes. After a moment, the breath gusted out. “Ranma ... are you sure?” she asked softly. Ranma simply nodded, then tilted her head up to capture her lover’s mouth with her own, her tongue running along Nabiki’s lips, seeking an entrance that was eagerly given. _Hell with it_ , Nabiki thought, _I’ll deal with any fallout in the morning!_

As the two girls’ tongues dueled, probing and circling, Nabiki began to stroke the breast Ranma had placed her hand on, running her fingers along the underside, up and around, then inward to circle the nipple crinkled tight in arousal. Ranma sucked in a breath, and Nabiki’s lips curved up around the two tongues as she felt a surge in the pleasure and lust radiating from her companion. She idly wondered if this was what it had been like for Ranma, all the times their positions had been reversed.

But the thought was fleeting, as she lost herself in the succubus’s rising pleasure and need. Breaking the kiss, her hands gripped Ranma by the waist and lifted, turning her lover so that those bounteous breasts were level with her face, and Ranma gasped, grabbing on to Nabiki’s shoulders as the other girl leaned forward to gently suckle a nipple, playing with it with lips and tongue while a hand took ownership of the other.

With Ranma holding her shoulders this left one hand free, and it roamed along the soft buttocks Nabiki had admired so often, then slipped around a thigh to probe up between the redhead’s legs. Ranma moaned as fingers ran along the outside edge of her cleft, up one side and down the other, then slipped among her rapidly moistening folds. “Wow, this wet already,” Nabiki murmured. “You _are_ a hot little firecracker, aren’t you?” She slipped a finger up into Ranma’s sheath and began to pump even as she sucked on the nipple her tongue had been playing with, chuckling throatily as Ranma’s pleasure and joy ticked up even higher.

“Yesssss,” Ranma managed to hiss. “I ... I’m your little ... little firecracker. All ... all yours ... all a’ me ...” Her voice faded away as her hips began to buck on their own. Nabiki chuckled again and stopped her own pumping, leaving it to Ranma’s hips. She added a second finger and only moved her hand to keep pace as her lover’s weightless lower torso tilted higher and higher into the air with each undulation.

Eventually, Ranma’s bucking hips had risen to the point that Nabiki was finding it difficult to keep her lips wrapped around their captured nipple, and she slipped her fingers out of the succubus’s sheath and let go of a breast to grasp Ranma by the waist. “As wonderful as your body feels, I want a taste,” she murmured, lifting Ranma higher and pulling the red-haired girl’s hips toward her face.

She paused for a moment to slip her lover’s legs over her shoulders, then Ranma gave out a strangled shout, clutching at Nabiki’s head as the Tendo’s mouth covered her cleft, tongue busily slipping along her folds and probing into her sheath. Nabiki pulled away for a moment to look up at Ranma’s face as she luxuriated in the waves of pleasure coming from the panting succubus. “Keep it down, Akane and Kasumi are next door, we don’t want to wake them up!” she whispered with a devilish grin, then dove back into her feast, hands holding the spasming nature spirit in place.

Ranma gritted her teeth against another shout at the resumed sensations washing through her from Nabiki’s attentions, fighting to keep her moans down. _Okay, two can play at this game,_ she thought shakily. Letting go of Nabiki’s head, she dropped her hands down along the outside of her thighs and ran her fingers along the bare skin of Nabiki’s chest through the T-shirt she wore, along the swell of her lover’s breasts. The redhead spasmed for a moment when Nabiki moaned into her cleft, then her fingers resumed their travels until they rubbed across the rosy tips she knew so well, now crinkled tight with passion. Nabiki moaned again, but this time Ranma was prepared for both the effect on her folds and the wave of pleasure washing out from the other girl. Her hands went to work, tweaking nipples and massaging flesh, and it was her turn to luxuriate in her own physical pleasure mixing with the sensations now radiating from the attentions she was giving her lover.

But Ranma’s own rising tide of pleasure was rapidly outpacing what her attentions were giving Nabiki, and her competitive nature awoke. Releasing Nabiki’s twin mounds, she put her hands on her lover’s head and pushed away floating out into the room.

“Ranma, what’s wrong?” Nabiki whispered, concern breaking through the pleasure high she’d been riding.

“Nothin’,” Ranma murmured back. “Spread yer legs.” Nabiki looked down at her bare legs, pressed together where she sat on the edge of the bed, then back up at her succubus. The mouth coated with Ranma’s juices broke into a broad grin as she spread her legs as wide as she could. Ranma darted forward to run her tongue around Nabiki’s lips, savoring the new taste of her own juices as her tongue roamed around and then into her lover’s mouth, then she flipped around and pulled herself down along Nabiki’s body. She paused for a moment to savor the intoxicating scent rising from the soaked panties Nabiki still wore, then closed her eyes as the top of her head sank into the bed she could barely see and her mouth fastened on Nabiki’s wet folds.

Nabiki sucked in a breath, then pulled Ranma’s hips toward her and buried her face between her lover’s legs, tongue again playing along the folds there and brushing across Ranma’s clit.  Now it was Nabiki’s turn to suppress a cry, burying it in Ranma’s pussy as Ranma moaned into her own. The two girls clutched at each other, each driving the other to greater heights and each feeding on the emotional feedback those heights delivered.

In the end it was Ranma that lost their impromptu race, unable to make up the lead that the attentions from Nabiki’s mouth and fingers had gained as they had first played with her. Her whole body tried to whiplash as her orgasm flashed through her, and she muffled the scream ripped from her throat in her partner’s cleft. It was all Nabiki could do to hold on to the spasming girl, even as the tsunami of pleasure smashing into her from the nature spirit set off her own orgasm and she locked a scream of her own behind clenched teeth. The pleasure and energy from Nabiki’s orgasm pushed Ranma’s own climax to even greater heights, and her world went dark as the wave of sensation smashed her under.


	5. Education of a Princess

Ranma slowly awoke to again find herself held tight in Nabiki’s arms, the blurs in front of her eyes turning into the concerned faces of Kasumi, lover and her mother looking down on her. As her eyes focused, Nodoka sat back on her heels with a sigh of relief and Nabiki’s death grip loosened. “It looks like she’ll be all right,” the older woman said, looking up at Nabiki.

Ranma scooted herself up in Nabiki’s lap and looked around, surprised to find herself in the room that had until that morning been his and Genma’s. “What ‘m I doin’ here?” she asked faintly.

“When you collapsed, Nabiki was afraid she’d hurt you and brought you here,” her mother explained.

“When I collapsed? Why would ...” Then she remembered the last moments before losing consciousness, and blushed as red as her hair. “Oh, right ...” she muttered as she tried to tug on her ponytail, only to find her arms trapped by Nabiki’s embrace. Not that it mattered, since _his_ ponytail went away whenever _he_ was hit by cold water — the leather tie ended up on top of the pile of clothes.

“ ‘Oh, right’,” Nabiki repeated with a relieved laugh. “No more sixty-nines for you, kiddo — they’re too much. Succubae must not be designed to actually have humans for lovers.”

“Does that mean we can’t —” the nature spirit started to say, then broke off as she glanced at her mother and Kasumi, her blush actually deepening.

“Oh my, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen quite that shade of purple on a person before,” Kasumi teased gently, making the other three chuckle — even a reluctant Ranma.

“And no, that doesn’t mean we ‘can’t’,” Nabiki said. “It just means we have to take turns, instead of going at the same time. It was probably the feedback loop we found ourselves in that did you in.”

“Oh, good!” Ranma replied in relief, then winced at a spike of resigned disapproval from Kasumi. She glanced worriedly over at the older Tendo. “Kasumi ... ?” she asked even as Nabiki’s arms around her tightened.

It was Kasumi’s turn to wince at Ranma’s worried tone and Nabiki’s glare. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, then opened them to smile gently at the redhead. “I’m happy you’re all right, Ranma,” she said quietly, and two lovers relaxed as they felt the truth of her words. “Now it’s late, even if tomorrow isn’t a school day, and today was a long and hard one. Let’s all get to bed ... or _back_ to bed, as the case may be.”

“Right!” Ranma enthused. “Let’s get ya ta sleep, Nabiki, ya aren’t gonna _believe_ what I got ta show ya!”

“What you saw in your vision?” Nabiki asked, an eyebrow going up, and Ranma nodded enthusiastically. “Sounds like a plan,” Nabiki said as she rose to her feet with the succubus still in her arms, and turned to Nodoka. “Thank you ... Mother, for your help. I’m sorry we’ve kept you up so late.”

“Think nothing of it,” Nodoka said, waving off the apology even as the two felt a flash of joy from her. “Please feel free to come to me whenever you need my help, whatever the time.”

/\

“I’m happy you’re all right, Ranma. Now it’s late, even if tomorrow isn’t a school day, and today was a long and hard one. Let’s all get to bed ... or _back_ to bed, as the case may be.”

Out in the hallway, a fuming Akane quietly slipped away, back into her dark room and closing the door. The need to barge into ‘Auntie’ Nodoka’s bedroom, to rant at the two people that had lied to her (even if she couldn’t see one of them), to demand to be told how much ‘Auntie’ Nodoka knew roiled in her gut, tensed every muscle. But she couldn’t — not with Kasumi there. She knew just what would happen if she did: her eldest sister would look at her with disappointment in her gentle eyes, and all Akane’s anger would drain away to be replaced by guilt. So however hard it was, she’d wait — the morning would come soon enough. As the angry Akane paced back and forth, she failed to notice the soft red glow that flickered around her clenched fists.

/oOo\

Nabiki opened her eyes to morning sunlight spilling through the window, then sat up and stretched. Even as late as she’d been up and the ‘exercise’ she’d gotten before going to sleep, she felt rested — at least, compared to the way she’d used to feel on first waking up before she’d picked up a bedmate.

_And speaking of bedmates, just where_ is _Ranma?_ Nabiki thought to herself as she got out of bed and pulled on her robe. She opened her window and looked out at the yard below, but couldn’t see any sign of the nature spirit, so she walked out of her room to check the open window in the hallway that looked down on the dojo.  Still no Ranma. _I know she said she had some thinking to do about the katas she’s been working on after she showed me her vision, but that should have been hours ago and I think I’d better be there when she becomes a he again._

And what a vision it had been. Nabiki shivered in awe as her thoughts wandered over that all-encompassing view of life, from the smallest weed and insect to the largest whales — and the future that stretched out before the human race was breathtaking. And the part nature spirits played, and the sheer joy and fortitude of the Voice! Though of course, there was a danger there, as well, especially for Ranma ...

“No, I’m not ready to start my training, you lying perverted FREAK!”

As a string of invective followed the opening shriek, Nabiki whirled from the window to for the stairway down at a run. _That was Akane! And it came from the dojo!_

/\

Nabiki reached the entrance to the dojo just in time to hear her older sister’s voice override Akane’s: “Akane! What do you think you are doing?” Stepping through into a firestorm of jealousy, angry betrayal, fear, shame, and angry amazement all mixed together, the middle Tendo saw Akane whirl away from a pale Ranma to face Kasumi.

“Kasumi, this pervert and Nabiki have been lying to us all along — there is no ‘Ranko’!” Whirling back to the ponytailed boy, she shouted, “Have you and Nabiki been laughing at us while you were rutting like — ?”

“Akane! That is quite enough, young lady!” Kasumi yelled.

Akane froze, then slowly turned back to her sister. “But Kasumi, they’ve —”

“I know, Akane,” Kasumi said, cutting her off. “I’ve known since I first met Ranma.” As Akane gaped, she continued, “Come to the house, we’ll explain what’s going on.”

Nabiki glanced over her shoulder at the sound of someone hurrying toward them and saw Nodoka approaching the dojo, the fathers behind her ducking back into the house. Turning back, she walked over and hugged her fiancé, suppressing a wince at the tremors she felt running through his body. “No, Kasumi, you and Mother take Ranma up to the house,” she said. “I’ll stay here and have a long overdue talk with the Princess. And Ranma,” she added, breaking the hug to look him in the face, “no running away to the Voice.”

“But, Nabs —”

“Please? For me?” After a moment Ranma nodded jerkily, and Nabiki smiled even as she fought to keep her anger off her face and gave him a gentle push toward her older sister and future mother-in-law. “Go on, I’ll join you in a minute.” _And it’s a good thing you aren’t an empath when you’re human._

Akane stared in shock as Ranma was pulled into a one-armed hug by his mother and led out the door. Kasumi shot her youngest sister another disapproving glare before following them. The raven-haired girl turned back toward her other older sister — and right into an open-handed slap heavy enough to twist her half around again.

“I’m trying to keep Ranma sane and halfway human, and you are not helping!” Nabiki ranted as Akane stared at her in shock, one hand raised to her throbbing cheek. “What’s wrong, _Princess_ , having trouble dealing with not being the one the household revolves around anymore?”

“What? ... No, of course not! What do you mean, keeping that ... Ranma sane?”

“Do you think it’s _easy_ to suddenly find yourself turning into a completely different species, with its own abilities and instincts?” Nabiki said with a sneer. “And to find himself turning into _that_! He’d have a lot easier time if he just turned into a human girl, or even some animals.”

Akane just stared for a moment, then whispered, “Nabiki, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

At the wave of confusion from her younger sister, Nabiki closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then gently blew it out, slumping a bit as she forced tense muscles to relax. Opening her eyes again, she gave a sigh. “All right, let’s try again. Remember that nature program about lions we saw a few years ago, how upset you were when the first thing the male lion did after driving off his predecessor was to hunt down and kill the pride’s cubs?”

Akane nodded, looking a little sick at the memory.

“Remember what Kasumi said to you at the time?” Nabki continued.

Akane nodded again. “She said I couldn’t get upset with a lion for acting like a lion,” she responded.

“So, how would you like to turn into a lion, have your instincts pushing you to act like a lion when you do, but still remember that you’re human, or will be again?  Remember what you did when you revert to human?”

Akane’s face took on a greenish tint, and she bolted for the doorway. Seconds later, the sounds of the raven-haired girl vomiting onto the lawn came back through the door. Grinning, Nabiki sauntered out to join her sister, leaning against the wall. When Akane finally finished and sat back on her heels, wiping at her mouth with her sleeve, Nabiki softly said, “So now you know what it’s like for Ranma. And to make it worse, he’s learned that he’s never going to be fully human, or at least a man as he defines the term. To tell you the truth, I’m surprised he — she — didn’t suggest last night that she just stay a nature spirit full-time. I’m really hoping he doesn’t suggest it now — as much as I’ve been enjoying my nature spirit lover, I’d miss my human friend ... and fiancé.”

“But ... but what about you sleeping with Ranma?” Akane mumbled, blushing. “Isn’t that perverted — two girls in the same bed?”

“You mean two girls having sex?” Nabiki asked, then grinned as Akane’s blush deepened even as she hesitantly nodded. Nabiki shrugged. “Maybe you could argue that _I’m_ playing the pervert, but not Ranma — succubae don’t care one way or the other. Whatever combination of sex, gender or number you care to name, food is food. Actually, that’s not quite true,” she added thoughtfully. “Ranma _has_ been acting perverted for a succubus — she’s been limiting herself to just me, awake, rather than haunting the dreams of you, Kasumi, Father, _his_ father, the neighbors, whoever. Monogamy is a human concept she isn’t willing to let go of, thankfully.”

Nabiki gazed at the still-blushing girl in front of her, now staring at the ground, then straightened. “So Akane, why does Ranma scare you?”

“What?” Akane shouted, her eyes shooting to her sister’s face.

“I asked, why does Ranma scare you? When I got here you weren’t just ranting at Ranma out of anger and jealousy, you were scared. Why?” Akane began to puff up in apparent anger even as Nabiki caught a spike of shame, and the middle Tendo simply smiled sardonically. “Don’t try to deny it, I’m an Initiate — I _know_.”

Akane deflated, her eyes again dropping even as Nabiki caught another spike of shame, mixed with fear this time. “It’s just ... it’s just all this ... this weirdness, this magic, it isn’t natural!”

Nabiki stared at the slumping, downcast girl, stunned at what she sensed. And was Akane actually shivering? The middle Tendo thought back over what she had sensed before from her younger sister, and when, and had to keep herself from slapping her forehead. She had been such an idiot! “Akane, would it help if you could actually see Ranma when she’s a nature spirit?” she asked with studied nonchalance.

Akane brightened immediately. “Can you do that?” she asked eagerly. “It can be a little ... frustrating ... how he — she — he could be hanging around and we not know it. I mean, sure, he’s seemed all right, but he’s still a boy! And who knows what else he can do when he’s a succubus?”

_Make that ‘scary’ and that sounds about right_ , Nabiki thought sardonically. _Still, she does have a point. As well ..._ “Perhaps I arrange that — making it so you can see her,” Nabiki said slowly. “Ranma won’t like it — she never reacts well at first when she meets someone that can see her, she doesn’t like people seeing her nude,” — Akane blushed again — “but she’s been having a problem with the katas she’s been trying to develop for her new body. She needs someone she can spar with.

“As for what she can do,” Nabiki continued, stepping forward to grasp Akane by the arm, “you’re getting a visitor in your dreams tonight. No, it won’t be for anything sexual,” she added hastily as Akane stiffened with anger and disgust, _At least, not so far as_ you’re _concerned — perhaps this’ll broaden your horizons a little_. “Just a vision she had last night. It’s ... really spectacular.”

Akane’s gaze had shot to her sister’s face at the mention of a dream visitor, and her protest died at the gentle smile on the face of the sister whose nickname of ‘Ice Queen’ she had privately thought a perfect match. “A-All right, Nabiki. But if she tries anything she’s going to regret it!”

“Right ...” Nabiki drawled, smile gone sardonic, then pulled her sister toward the house. “But right now, you have an apology to make.”

/\

Kasumi had thought fast as she followed the shaking ponytailed boy and his mother out of the dojo, and once in the yard motioned to Nodoka to guide Ranma to the kitchen entrance. The fathers weren’t going to be any help with this, and the kitchen was a private domain that didn’t involve a bed. Hopefully, that would help.

As soon as the three stepped through the doorway into Kasumi’s private kingdom, Ranma looked around, then headed for the sink and turned on the water.

“Ranma, you promised your fiancée!” Nodoka said firmly when she realized what Ranma was doing.

“Yeah, an’ I’ll keep it. I just wanna be able ta _feel_ again!” Ranma said as he stuck his hand under the running faucet, and sighed with relief as her clothes dropped through her to the floor, the surrounding non-living materials went translucent, the Voice was suddenly a faint whisper in the background, and a wave of emotions washed over her from her mother and future sister-in-law — love, concern, love ... and a great deal of anger. The now red-haired succubus floated around to face the two, her shoulder-length hair floating free, too upset to be even faintly embarrassed at the naked bodies now on display through their almost invisible clothing. “Um ... Mom, Kasumi, why are ya angry? I mean, Kasumi, I know ya don’t really like me an’ Nabiki sleepin’ together, but ya seemed mostly alright with it last night. And Mom, you’ve never seemed ta care.”

The two women glanced at each other and Kasumi sighed, then forced a smile as the anger from the two seemed to drain away. “It’s Akane I’m — we’re — angry with, Ranma, not you — you don’t get angry with a lion for being a lion. Yes, if you were human and I found that you were sleeping with Nabiki I’d insist you find another place to live until the two of you married. But you aren’t — I’m just having a little trouble accepting that. Apparently, Akane’s having an even harder time.”

Ranma began to shake, her eyes dropping, as the memories of what Akane had shouted at him returned. “She c-c-called me a ... a whore and ... and a ...” Suddenly, she found herself hugged from both sides, Kasumi’s breasts pressed against hers through the Tendo sister’s housedress and her mother’s against her back as their arms circled her.

“You just ignore what she said,” Kasumi murmured. “She may be acting the ignorant, bigoted idiot but _we_ know better.”

“And by the time your fiancée finishes dressing her down, so will she,” Nodoka added.

Ranma didn’t reply, but her shivering eased and vanished under the wave of love radiating from the two older women. She sighed in contentment, then broke the hug long enough to make it a three-way embrace.

She didn’t know how long the three simply stood there, before Nabiki’s voice came from the doorway from the kitchen into the hallway. “Ah, there you are!”

Ranma immediately broke away from Kasumi and her mother, blushing furiously. “I’m leavin’ the Voice alone, just like I promised!” she shouted as she turned toward her fiancée, then froze at the sight at the youngest Tendo standing beside her.

“Sure, I know,” Nabiki assured her, waving off her declaration of innocence. _You aren’t acting giddy, for one thing._ Pushing forward an Akane staring at the floor even as she radiated guilt and fear, she continued, “Now, Akane here has something to tell you.”


	6. Meeting Again for the First Time

Nabiki sighed with relief as she saw Ranma exit the school and walk across the school lawn toward where she sat at the base of what she had come to think of as their lunch tree. Just seeing him was enough to ease her pounding headache. Of course, part of that might have been because as soon as she’d seen him she’d stopped trying to extend her empathic sense. _No, you’re not getting more paranoid, not at all_ , the middle Tendo thought sarcastically. She had been growing increasingly frustrated over the past four days at her failure to narrow the list of Awakened she’d gotten from Nodoka down to a manageable number — she’d even gotten desperate enough to ask for any information her blackmail victims might have, with the promise of an end to all payments for anyone that came up with anything useful.

And the Amazons haunting the dojo and following Ranma wherever he went (one of them always Shampoo) hadn’t helped. She and Ranma had managed to corner Shampoo and demand to know why, but the purple-haired Amazon had refused to say. All she’d been willing to tell them was that Genma was no longer her husband, and that she wasn’t pursuing Ranma.

_And then there’s Akane_ , Nabiki added as she saw her sister notice Ranma from where she sat with her friends, and the way the youngest Tendo’s eyes flinched away from her sensei — Nabiki hadn’t had any luck yet coming up with a practical way for Akane to see ‘Ranko’ yet, either. The result was that, even though her apology the morning Nabiki had given her a dressing down had been sincere, and she was really trying to accept Ranma, she just couldn’t — not, at least, when Ranma wasn’t actually teaching her in the dojo. So the two avoided each other as much as possible. _At least she’s agreed to maintain the pretense that Ranma and ‘Ranko’ are separate people_ _, that’s something,_ Nabiki reassured herself. _Yeah, right, grasping at straws much? Maybe you should try the one idea you’ve had so far tonight instead of this weekend — it’s useless for sparring, but it would at least let Akane see what ‘Ranko’ looks like. Maybe if she’s able to attach a face to the name she’ll relax a little._ That idea seemed better the more she thought about it — it would get it out of the way before they tried to break the combined curse on Kasumi and Dr. Tofu.

Ranma plopped down beside her, and Nabiki gave her fiancé her first smile since arriving at school. “So, are they still out there?” she asked.

“Yeah, they are — Shampoo and two others, the same two from this mornin’,” Ranma grumbled. “I’m gettin’ a little tired of this. But at least they still don’t seem ta be able ta see Ranko like the old crone, that’s somethin’.”

_And at least it gave you some more time in nature spirit form, didn’t it, love?_ Another problem she’d actually managed to forget for a few minutes — the way Ranma was spending as much time as he could manage as a succubus, practically all the time he wasn’t in school, eating, studying, or training Akane. She felt like the young man she had met and come to love in her dreams even before he’d arrived at the dojo was slowly slipping away and she was powerless to prevent it.

_Stop it!_ Nabiki scolded herself, glad that Ranma was human at the moment and couldn’t sense her growing depression. _You’re a smart girl, you’ve always come up with answers before, and you will again. Just give it some time._ She firmly ignored the quiet voice in the back of her mind telling her that time might be something she didn’t have.

/\

“Go on,” Miyo encouraged her long-time friend, nodding toward Nabiki and her fiancé sitting several trees away. “She doesn’t really eat people for breakfast, you know. Look, she’s even got a smile on her face.”

“Sure, but she’s with Ranma,” Maki responded. “She’s always smiling when she’s with him, and never when she isn’t.”

“So now’s a good time, when she’s in a better mood,” Miyo riposted, then sighed when her friend continued to stall. “Look, do you want Nabiki off your sister’s back, or what? Just go, tell her what you told me and ask her to apply the reward to the payments your sister has been making.”

“Are you sure the information’s good?” Maki asked hesitantly as she watched the Ice Queen finish her bento then lie down with her fiancé’s stomach for a pillow. “I never knew you were into all that magic stuff, and I’ve known you all my life!”

“I know, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but the real Initiates don’t let other people know what they are if they can help it — people that don’t believe think you’re weird, it can make it harder to get a job. And you aren’t even lying, really. You really have been keeping an eye on Gosunkugi, and you really did notice him using the storage shed — you just didn’t realize what it meant until I told you.”

“Well, okay, if you’re sure....”

/\

Alerted by the nervous fear of the first year, low powered Awakened girl approaching, Nabiki looked over from where she was lying on the grass with her head on Ranma’s stomach, his hand stroking her hair. She frowned for a moment before carefully putting on the nonthreatening version of her Ice Queen face even as she suppressed a sigh. _Come on, I’m not_ that _much of a monster, am I?_ “Yes, what can we do for you?” she asked coolly when the younger girl stopped by the couple.

“Uh ... I ... that is ...” The girl broke off, took a deep breath, and tried again. “I’m Konishi Maki, you know my older sister Aiko.” Nabiki nodded, recognizing the name from her list of monthly payments. “Well ... you sent out an email a few days ago asking for information?”

Nabiki nodded again, abruptly sitting up. “Yes, I did. I’m a little surprised your sister took it seriously enough to show it to you. Isn’t she the one that’s still insisting that Ranko is a prank of some kind?”

Maki blushed. “Yeah, she thought it was some kind of prank, and she ... well, she went off on a rant about how you were playing with her. If I give you the information instead of big sis, will you still stop her payments?”

Nabiki nodded instantly. “Of course, I’ll be happy to consider you an agent for your sister, have a seat. So, what do you have for me?”

“It’s Gosunkugi,” Maki started as she carefully sat. “He really creeps me out, so I keep an eye on him whenever he’s around. A few times, I’ve seen him go into the storage shed by the wall over there.” She pointed along the wall that surrounded the school grounds from the corner they were sitting in. Nabiki started in surprise when she noticed it. “I wondered what he was up to, so once I snuck up after he went in and heard some sort of chanting — there was a weird smell, too. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he _really_ doesn’t like you. He glares at you whenever you’re around him. Maybe ... maybe he’s doing something about it? I guess if nature spirits really exist magic might work, too.”

“Gosunkugi ...” Nabiki said slowly. “You mean Gosunkugi Hikaru?”

Maki nodded vigorously.

“Interesting, I hadn’t considered him ... he isn’t in my year and always seems to just fade into the background.” _He isn’t on the list Nodoka — Mother — gave me, either ... but his father is, and as a demon summoner. And he was one of the two Awakened in Akane’s class strong enough to actually see ‘Ranko’ when Ranma and Kuno took their dive into the pool._ Nodding, she said, “I’ll look into it and see what I come up with. You’re in Ranma’s and Akane’s class, right?” Maki nodded again. “Then one of them will let you know what I find, and whether it’s worth enough to stop your sister’s payments.”

Maki waited, but when Nabiki didn’t say anything more, she murmured her thanks and stood up to scurry away. Keeping her Ice Queen mask firmly in place, Nabiki watched with interest as Maki rejoined the other Awakened that had been there that first day Ranma attended.

“Uh, Nabs,” Ranma asked, “What shed was she talkin’ about?”

“The one right over there,” Nabiki replied, discreetly pointing along the wall, then stiffened as she watched Ranma’s eyes slide right over it. “You can’t see it, can you?”

“No, I can’t.” Ranma said absentmindedly. “There’s a spot that’s blurry, that my eyes don’t want to see.” His eyes narrowed and sweat beaded on his brow as he fought to focus on the blank spot, and suddenly something seemed to snap and it sprang into focus. “ _There_ it is, cool! How did he do that?”

“I don’t know,” Nabiki mused. “There’s a ritual you can cast on a person or something like a piece of jewelry that would do the same thing, but it requires intent — the person under the ritual has to want to not be noticed. I have no idea how you would cast that on a place.

“Anyway, now that we know the shed is there, we’ll check it out once school starts again. I think you’ve been doing well enough in school and this is important enough that you can miss a class. Until then ...” She lay back down, putting her head in her fiancé’s lap and smiling up at him. “Where were we?”

/oOo\

The quick and dirty ritual complete, Nabiki glanced over at her fiancé, her eyes wandering over the nude form of the succubus floating by the sink in the high school custodian’s storage room, her smoothly muscled legs, the small bush of red hair where they joined, bountiful, red-tipped breasts, her red hair floating loose around her shoulders.... Ranma shivered at the attention, a faint blush mounting her cheeks.

“So, can you see me?” Nabiki asked, suppressing a sigh of regret at their lack of time as she walked over to turn off the sink’s faucet.

“Not really,” Ranma replied. Her eyes were continually sliding off to one side or the other as she tried to focus on her lover. “I know exactly where ya are — I can _feel_ ya, but my eyes don’t want to focus.” Brow furrowing, she forced her gaze to center on the out-of-focus area around Nabiki. Again, she felt a sudden shock as the middle Tendo sprang into view. “ _There_ ya are!”

“So the glamour works on nature spirits’ sight, but not on other senses — just like humans. I wonder if Cherry Blossom would still be able to see my aura?” Nabiki mused as she gathered up Ranma’s school uniform and tucked it into the oversized book bag she’d started using since the Saotome men’s arrival. “Worth checking out later, let’s get moving. Anyone in the hallway?”

Ranma looked through the almost completely transparent walls, marked off where the walls for the classrooms were, and shook her head. “Looks like everybody’s in class.”

“Good, let’s go.”

/\

Nabiki paced a half-circle around the outside walls of the shed that weren’t flush with the brick wall surrounding the school grounds, frowning at what she found — or rather didn’t find. “Nothing, not a single ward, just the glamour,” she muttered. “Is he that confident in his ability to handle anything he might attract, or is he just that stupid?” _And now that I’m close, this magic definitely feels familiar._ Glancing over at the succubus floating beside her, she asked, “Can you sense anything? See any traps inside?”

“Just the — what did ya call it? Glamour? — just that,” Ranma replied as she tried to see if there were any barely visible shapes within the confines of the shed. Doubtfully, she added, “I’m not seein’ anything that looks like a trap — some shelves, I think, maybe a desk.”

“Good enough,” Nabiki said, and carefully tried the doorknob — unlocked. Chalking up one more to Gosunkugi’s stupidity, she took a deep breath and yanked open the door while stepping back and to the side — nothing. What an idiot. _Though now that I think about it, the obscurity glamour he somehow cast on the shed would work on any nature spirits or demons around without the emotions or auras all living beings have. And without the feel that wards would have, the shed should be overlooked by pretty much everyone but the most powerful Awakened and more powerful demons._

Shaking herself clear of her musings, the Tendo Initiate stepped into the shed, followed by her succubus fiancé, and strolled around, examining the room’s contents. A smooth cement floor, washed clean, perfect for ritual circles; shelves with clear glass jars full of various colors of chalk, incense burners and boxes of various types of incense to burn in them; candles, some scented; a stack of books on the small table, some of the titles making her flinch.

And now that she was inside the obscurity glamour’s boundary, her sense of recently performed magic was shouting at her — unusually so, if she didn’t know better she’d have thought there was an active ritual being performed. _I wonder if the process of attaching the obscurity glamour to a place somehow locked in the power raised, kept it from dissipating? And that power has a_ very _familiar feel, too. I wonder why Gosunkugi targeted me? I don’t think we’ve exchanged three whole sentences._

She took one last look around the small room, then turned for the door. “Come on, Ranma, there’s nothing more to learn here, let’s get back to school, get you changed back.”

“So what did ya learn?” Ranma asked as she floated alongside her fiancée. “Why would Gosunkugi have all his magic stuff out here?”

“He doesn’t,” Nabiki replied. “The supplies in the shed are the basics, not enough for most rituals. He must just bring whatever extra he needs for whatever ritual he’s planning on.”

“Oh.” Ranma waited for a few moments, then asked, “And did he do it?”

“Yeah.”

/\

From the roof of the school, Gorash watched as the two teenagers passed below it and disappeared into the school, then turned to the imp that had recently joined it and the other two imps Mara had set to spying on Ranma. “So, Geresh, are you going to tell Gosunkugi that Nabiki and Ranma have found his secret clubhouse?”

Geresh shook its head with a toothy grin, before putting on an innocent air. “No, I’m afraid when my Great and Powerful Master summoned me, he only told me to alert him when Ranma spends time as a succubus outside Nabiki’s wards when they aren’t in school. He somehow neglected to mention reporting anything they do that might interest him. I’m sure that was just an oversight on his part, but he was very insistent that I follow his instructions to the letter.”

The two imps chuckled, then settled down for the long wait until school got out.

/oOo\

Nabiki walked into her and Ranma’s bedroom with a roll of paper as long as she was under her arm, closing the door behind her. Her lover, still dressed in his school uniform, looked up nervously from where he was sitting cross-legged on their bed, arms propped on his legs holding his yawn-inducing biology textbook. “Akane’s home?” he asked, then sighed when Nabiki nodded.

“Yes, her school club got out a little early. Ranma, if you really don’t want to do this —” Nabiki started, worried about the wave of discomfort coming from her fiancé, only to break off when Ranma shook his head.

“No, you’re right, we need ta do somethin’ about how nervous Akane’s been around me — it’s affectin’ her training.” Closing the textbook (and reflecting ironically that he’d finally found something he wanted to do less than schoolwork — or at least biology), he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. “So, we doin’ it here?”

“Yes, less chance of the fathers walking in on us. Akane’s getting changed right now,” Nabiki said as she took the roll of paper out from under her arm and held it horizontally. “Why don’t you help me get the circle rolled out?”

“Sounds good,” Ranma agreed, stepping over to carefully take one end of the roll of paper.

/\

School uniform exchanged for shorts and a T-shirt, Akane nervously knocked on her sister’s bedroom door, then pushed it open and stepped inside. She _really_ wasn’t sure about this — the vision Ranma had shown her the night after Nabiki had taken her to task had been like nothing she’d ever imagined, literally mindblowing, and she’d been in a daze for hours the following morning before she finally managed to shake it off and look at the world through the eyes of a human again. But it had been _too_ different, _too_ weird, and she hadn’t been able to keep herself from being nervous and resentful around her sister and sensei, no matter how hard she’d tried. Her world had been mostly ordinary and predictable, and being shown a larger, magnificent, dangerous world she lived in but couldn’t even sense, much less touch, had not been a welcome gift. Now she found herself half terrified and half exhilarated at the thought of experiencing more of the world of magic Ranma had shown her, and feeling very small.

Akane found most of the bedroom floor covered with one of Nabiki’s large sheets of paper covered by a complex circle of various shades of chalk pasted on, the four corners held down by schoolbooks. The Tendo Initiate was on her knees at one edge, glancing between the circle and a sheet of paper in one hand as red sand trickled down from her other hand to form a fresh line. Ranma glanced over at his student from where he stood to the side, and after a few moments carefully cleared his throat to get the attention of the apparently oblivious kneeling girl. “Nabs, Akane’s here, are ya about ready?”

“Almost done,” Nabiki mumbled without lifting her eyes from her work, carefully moving around the circle to add more thin lines of the colored sand. A few minutes later, she leaned back and dumped the remaining sand in her hand into an open jar by her bed. “Okay, that does it,” she said with a satisfied sigh, and looked up at her sister and her lover. “So, Ranma, does this circle look familiar?”

Ranma’s brow furrowed, his hand rising to scratch his neck underneath his ponytail as he looked over the patterns at his feet. He could hardly claim to be an expert, considering that it had been less than two months since his — or rather her — accidental summoning after Jusenkyo. But he hadn’t seen very many of Nabiki’s creations, either, and he cast his mind back over the few occasions that he had. “It looks kinda like the circle ya used ta summon me, only more complicated,” he finally said.

“Got it in one!” Nabiki agreed, smiling as she stood up. “This is simple enough. You switch forms, I summon you into the circle, and the extra touches I’ve added _ought_ to allow Sleepers outside the circle to see you.”

“Sleepers?” Akane asked, face tightening as she fought to keep her nervousness from exploding into anger.

“Uh ... yes, that’s the term the mystic community uses to describe the unAwakened,” Nabiki explained, glancing nervously at her younger sister, then hurriedly continued as she motioned toward the empty glass next to the pitcher of water on her desk. “Ranma, get changed and let’s get started.”

Ranma nodded and walked over, filled the glass, and offered it to Akane. “No reason ta risk breakin’ a glass, or disturbin’ Nabs’s circle,” he explained.

“No kidding!” Nabiki exclaimed, then glanced slyly at Ranma out of the corner of her eye.  “Nasty things can happen if summoning circles are disturbed.”

Akane nodded nervously, ignoring her sometimes-sensei’s chuckle as she took the glass from him, and dumped it over the raven-haired boy’s head. In spite of all of times she’d seen the effect cold water had on Ranma, she still couldn’t avoid gasping slightly as he vanished from sight and his empty clothes dropped to the floor.

Nabiki pointed to a spot next to her on the floor. “Akane, you stand here, facing the circle,” she ordered. Akane walked around the circle-covered paper to join her, and Nabiki started chanting. Her voice started out low but quickly crescendoed, and suddenly floating in the middle of the circle facing the two Tendos was a teenage girl: loose red hair floating around her shoulders; slightly shorter than Akane; too cute for words; and very naked, her hands covering her breasts and crotch.

Akane stared, wide-eyed. “Ranma, is that _you_?” she gasped.

“Who else would it be?”

“But you’re shorter, and your hair’s red, and your _naked_!”

“Mom says I look just like she did when she was a girl — and a’ course I’m naked! Ya think I whip up new clothes outta thin air when I get splashed and whatever I’m wearin’ falls through me?”

“I ... well ... I didn’t ...” a furiously blushing Akane sputtered.

Nabiki laughed. “Didn’t think, little sis?” she jibed.  “Or listened?  I _said_ Ranma didn’t like people seeing her like this because she’s naked.” She reached out a foot to break up one of the lines of sand on the paper. Instantly, Ranma vanished from Akane’s sight.

“Now ya know why I wanted ya ta think that ‘Ranko’ was a different person,” came ‘Ranko’s’ voice from apparently empty air. “Big, tough, manly Ranma, and with a splash a’ cold water I turn inta ... this. A’ course, it does have its good side,” she continued, and Nabiki flushed as, invisible to her younger sister, Ranma struck a ‘come and sex me’ pose. Ranma giggled at the sudden rush of lust from her fiancée, then her voice turned serious. “I’m sorry we lied ta ya about it, but ...”

Her voice trailed off, and Akane stared thoughtfully at the empty space where she’d last seen the redheaded cutie. Suddenly, an image flashed into her mind of herself in that spot, breasts gone, new equipment between her legs (rather hazy, that — the only naked male she’d seen was Ranma the night he’d arrived, and then only briefly), naked to the world, unable to even touch clothes — she blanched, swaying slightly, lightheaded, the world suddenly gone hazy and surreal. Beside her, her sister grabbed her by the shoulder even as she heard an “Owww!” from the circle.

“Akane, what’s wrong?” Nabiki asked, a note of concern in her voice that warmed Akane’s heart even as she tried to force her mind away from the thought of herself in Ranma’s place.

Shuddering, the youngest Tendo drew a deep breath. “I’m fine,” she asserted, trying to make herself believe it. “Is Ranma all right?” she asked, half concerned, half looking for a distraction.

“She’s fine, just forgot she was inside a circle and tried to grab you when you almost fainted,” Nabiki replied. “Hold on a moment while I reverse the summoning.” Akane glanced over at her sister to see the pageboy-haired girl face the circle. “Begone!” Nabiki ordered.

Akane shivered as she felt a faint hint of _something_ wash over her. A moment later she felt a soft hand touch the shoulder that her sister wasn’t holding, and she shivered again as she realized that she was _feeling_ it, warm skin against warm skin through her t-shirt. “Akane, you all right?” Ranma asked, concern in her voice.

Akane nodded, impulsively reaching up to cover the hands on her shoulders with her own. “I’m fine,” she said again, then straightened, steeling herself. “Ranma?”

“Yeah?” the invisible nature spirit replied, voice suddenly wary.

“I ... I’m ... I’m sorry,” Akane managed to force out.

“Sorry? For what?”

“For ... for everything. For what happened to you, for hitting you with a table, not trusting you — everything.”

For a moment there was only silence, then Ranma said, “Hey, don’t worry about it, everyone screws up sooner or later — ‘cept Nabs, a’ course, she’s perfect. Just ask her.” As Akane snorted, glancing over to see her sister rolling her eyes, Ranma continued, “An’ don’t be feeling sorry for me. Sure, there are parts a’ this I don’t like — a lot — but I hate ta think of what would a’ happened if Nabs hadn’t summoned me by accident that first time. If not gettin’ the curse would mean not havin’ Nabiki, I’ll take the curse.”

Nabiki brightened, her eyes suspiciously shiny, but before she could say anything there was a knock on the door. “Ranma? Nabiki?” Kasumi said hesitantly through the door. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything, but dinner will be ready soon. Have either of you seen Akane?”

“She’s here, too,” Nabiki replied, her voice a little husky. “We’ll be right down.”

As they heard Kasumi’s acknowledgement and retreating footsteps, the middle Tendo looked over the circle on the floor. “Screw it, I’ll clean up tonight,” she muttered. Then in a louder voice said, “After dinner, why don’t we go to the park? I can do the homework I’ve been ignoring all afternoon, and you two can get your evening spar in then do your own studying.”

“Sure, sounds good,” came Ranma’s voice. “I’ve been wantin’ ta get in some trainin’ fer Akane in an area that’s not just an empty space.”

Akane grinned at the thought, almost feeling like she could float like the nature spirit she had seen in the circle, with the weight of her nervousness and distrust gone. “Yeah,” she agreed, “that sounds like fun.” And for the first time in too long, it really did.


	7. Too Big a Fish

From where she lay propped up against a hilltop tree, Nabiki subtly glanced over the top of her textbook at Ranma-sensei and his student below her. Ranma, his back turned to his fiancée, was slowly backing up the hill toward her as he cheerfully taunted his student. Akane was struggling to catch up as she fought for footing on the rain-damp grass from the earlier drizzle. Nabiki shook her head with a sigh — in his pleasure at the happy outcome of their little revelation to Akane that afternoon, he had slipped back into old training habits. The middle Tendo briefly considered calling him on it right then and there, and was in the middle of reluctantly rejecting the idea to avoid undercutting his authority as sensei in front of his student when the question was taken out of her hand.

“C’mon, Tomboy, my ancient aunt can move faster than that,” Ranma called with a grin at his huffing student. “You’ve been speed-practicin’ for weeks now, ya can do better — whoops!” As he took a step back, his foot came down on a piece of slick mud and for just a moment his arms pinwheeled for balance before his training reasserted itself and he started to let himself drop. For just that split second his attention was off his student, and Akane lunged forward up the hill, striking forward even as her own feet slipped out from underneath her — which meant that when her fist slammed into his descending groin, half her momentum was gone and Ranma only curled around the blow as he fell over his student and rolled down the hill instead of being lifted off his feet.

“Ranma!” Nabiki shrieked even as Akane sprawled full-length and slid down the hill after her teacher. Tossing her book to the side, the pageboy-haired girl started to run down the hill only to find herself slipping and rolling head over heels after the other two, fetching up a few yards away from them.

“Ranma-sensei, are you okay?” Akane asked, lifting herself up from where she lay against the ponytailed boy.

“Good ... good hit,” Ranma managed to gasp out as he forced himself to uncurl. Sucking in a deep breath, he slowly got to his feet. Nabiki and Akane each took an arm, and the three slowly moved up the hill to the tree Nabiki had been sitting against.

Ranma sighed with relief as he settled down against the tree trunk and the two girls sat on each side of him. “Like I said, Akane, good hit. That would win ya a fight for real against almost all guys. Now, what did ya do wrong?”

“Wrong?” Akane asked. “What do you mean, wrong? It worked, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, it worked,” Ranma agreed, “but what if it hadn’t? What if I’d managed ta twist just enough ta take it on the leg, instead a’ the balls? You would a’ been sliding down the hill on yer stomach, and I would a’ been waiting fer ya when ya got ta the bottom. An’ if you’d been fightin’ more than just me, ya would’ve been helpless even if ya tagged me. Never commit everything ya got ta an attack unless ya have no other choice. Ya didn’t do that when ya were fightin’ the Horde, did ya?”

“Nobody in the Horde was as good as you,” Akane riposted, but with a thoughtful look on her face. “But that just means I have to be even more careful with you, doesn’t it?”

“Ya got it,” Ranma agreed, then glanced up as the sound of the renewed drizzle pattering gently on the tree’s leaves drifted down to them. “Cool! Now we get ta try somethin’ else I’ve been thinkin’ about,” he said even as Nabiki made a face and scrabbled to get her textbooks safely in her bookbag. Standing and hobbling out into the soft rain, he forced himself up straight and soon vanished from Akane’s sight, his empty clothes dropping to the grass.

“Ranma?” Akane asked, glancing around, then gasped and whirled at a warm, soft touch against her side through her gi.

“Ranko-sensei, Akane, don’t forget,” came Ranma’s voice from the other side, and the youngest Tendo jerked away from another soft touch tickling her ribs. “I want ya ta try and stop me from taggin’ ya.”

“But how am I supposed to stop you if I can’t _see_ you?” Akane demanded, then shrieked and spun away from tickling fingers running up her spine even as her backfist flashed through the space Ranma should have occupied.

“Give it yer best shot,” Ranma replied even as her fingers ran along Akane’s stomach, then grunted as Akane felt her side kick graze along her mentor’s smooth skin. “Good, like that, try ta figure out where I am by how I’m touchin’ ya.”

/\

From a row of bushes at the foot of the hill, Gorash watched as the red-haired succubus danced on air, circling around her student and darting in every minute or so to tickle a rib or brush an arm, Akane spinning in place, kicking and striking out in an attempt to tag her tormentor. Turning to Geresh it said to its fellow imp, “It looks like he’s going to be staying this way for awhile, let your so-called master know.” Geresh nodded without a word and flew off, keeping low to the ground with the bushes between it and the Awakened and her part-time succubus fiancé on the hilltop.

Turning back to watch the dance, it muttered to one of the two imps still beside it, “Jalok, be ready to seek out Mara at a moment’s notice. That idiot Gosunkugi might actually be able to pull it off, this time.”

/\

Gosunkugi Hikaru looked up from the equation he was puzzling over as the door to the former high school tool shed was pushed open slightly.  The sickly-looking boy’s eyes widened as the imp he’d summoned a week earlier slipped inside. (At least, he assumed it was the imp he’d summoned — he’d never bothered to learn how to tell them apart, but what other imp would even be able to see his little hideaway?) Since it wasn’t the appointed time for its report and the budding Initiate hadn’t summoned it, that meant ...

“Master, Ranma is currently in his succubus form and outside of Nabiki’s wards,” the imp reported as it bowed and scraped.

With a triumphant shout Gosunkugi shot up from the desk where he’d been studying. “Begone!” he shouted, not noticing the imp roll its eyes as it vanished while Gosunkugi whirled to grab the matches from their place on the shelf beside the candles. “At last, I have her!” he exulted as he circled around the summoning circle he had already drawn on the smooth concrete floor, carefully lighting the candles already at their places at the cardinal points. The last candle sporting its spike of flame, he lit the incense in the burner to the side, waited impatiently for the scent to permeate the tiny room, then closed his eyes, fought his mind clear, and began to chant.

/\

Ranma grinned happily as she dodged Akane’s swinging backhand fist, then the follow-up kick — neither any longer wild strikes at empty air. She knew it! Akane had been _sensing_ things, the succubus had been picking up hints of spiking discomfort — even fear — from her student for days, but she hadn’t realized why. Then he’d had his suspicions, but didn’t see any way to confirm them, considering how antsy his student had been when he was a she. But now ...

... Now, she’d better call off the sparring before the rising frustration boiling off her student tipped over into explosive rage. “Break!” the redhead called out, then, “Whoa!” as she twisted to the side and dropped, Akane’s fist flashing through the spot her head had occupied a split second earlier. “Break, break, enough!” she yelled as she quickly flew back and up out of the youngest Tendo’s reach.

Akane stared at the empty air Ranma’s voice was coming from, chest heaving, and her fists unclenched as the fury slowly faded from her eyes. “Good job!” Ranma caroled as she cautiously approached the raven-haired girl. _Outside of almost losin’ yer temper in a sparrin’ session, we’re gonna hafta work on that. But first ..._

“Good job? But I didn’t hit you!” Akane protested as she stretched muscles gone tense with anger.

“No, ya didn’t, but only ‘cause I was dodging ya. That’s just it, I _had_ ta dodge ya, you knew where I was!” As Akane’s eyes widened, Ranma turned toward her fiancée. “Nabiki, get over here!”

Nabiki rose from where she had been watching the one-sided sparring and walked forward until she was at the edge of the protection from the light drizzle provided by the tree’s canopy, eyes bright with interest.

“Nabs, I think ya said earlier that ya can sense Awakened, right? D’ya feel anything from Akane?”

Nabiki shook her head. “Yes, I did, and no, I don’t. But you’re right, Akane was definitely aiming for you toward the end.”

“But ya don’t sense anything from Kasumi, either, so maybe Akane’s like her,” Ranma replied.

Akane stiffened. “Like _Kasumi_?”

Unseen by his student, Ranma blushed as Nabiki rolled her eyes. “Good going,” the middle Tendo muttered, then turned to her sister. “Yes, Kasumi can see nature spirits, apparently she always could. And Ranko’s right, I don’t sense anything unusual from her, either.”

“So let’s test it out,” Ranma said eagerly. “I’m gonna shut up an’ circle you, movin’ up an’ down, an’ when Nabiki says ‘mark’ I’ll stop an’ you try ta point ta me.”

Akane nodded, her expression an odd mix of uncertainty and eagerness, and Ranma started to slowly fly around her, moving up and down like a wave. “Mark!” Nabiki called out, and Ranma froze directly behind her student. Akane closed her eyes and slowly turned, passed up her invisible sensei, paused, reversed the turn, then pointed directly at the floating redhead. “There!” she announced firmly.

“Ya got it!” Ranma enthused, and Akane opened her eyes with a broad grin.

Nabiki smiled at the happiness radiating from the two younger girls, then frowned speculatively. “This does sound something like what big sis has,” she mused. “I’m going to have to ask her if she went through a period where she could sense spirits before she could see them — though she might not remember, considering how long she says it’s been.”

“Sounds good,” Ranma agreed. “If she did, that’ll mean that Akane should be able ta see me soon, and I could use a sparring —” She broke off, frowning, as she felt an odd tugging sensation, one that felt familiar.... Then she felt the tug again, stronger than before — as if there was a rope attached to her guts, pulling — and her eyes widened as she remembered when she had felt it before, the night when she had first merged with Nabiki, during the attack on her fiancée’s wards. Nabiki hadn’t been the target, she had! The succubus frantically looked over at Nabiki, but from the ever-strengthening pull she was too far away. That left ...

Ranma whirled back and dove toward Akane, only to feel the tug turn into a yank. Just before she could reach her student, the raven-haired girl vanished from her sight as the world flashed white.

/\

Akane slowly spun in a circle, eyes closed, stretching out the extra sense she hadn’t even known she had. Then she felt it, the same thing she’d been feeling off and on since Ranma had arrived at the dojo — something she’d felt at times all along, but never been able to put a name to, link to anything she could see in the real world. Straining, she tried to tighten it, localize sensation tickling the edge of her mind. The ‘scent’ seemed to shrink, center even as her spin took her past it, so she stopped, backed up ... there! “There!” she announced firmly.

“Ya got it!” she heard ‘Ranko’-sensei say excitedly, and opened her eyes to stare at the spot of empty air that she somehow _knew_ held her sensei, a broad grin breaking across her face. She was so caught up in the moment of exultation that her sister’s voice became unintelligible background noise. Maybe she was no longer the best martial artist around, maybe she had no idea what her older sister was capable of, or of her oldest sister’s apparent secret life, or just how _large_ the world really was, but she still had a place in it!

And then she felt the point of something that was Ranma suddenly rushing toward her in an attempt to catch her off guard and felt laughter bubbling up as she shifted slightly to the deceptively laid back stance her sensei had taught her, from which she could strike without warning. Oh, yes, Akane was going to prove to him — her — that she was still paying attention ... and between one heartbeat and the next all sense of Ranma vanished.

Akane spun in place, stretching out her new sense, searching for the least hint of Ranma — nothing. Turning to Nabiki, she found the pageboy-haired girl staring at where she’d last sensed her sensei, eyes wide and face pale. “What just happened?” the suddenly frightened youngest Tendo asked.

“Oh, crap, I wasn’t the target, _Ranma_ was,” Nabiki whispered, then whirled to grab her book bag and began to run — too fast for the rain-slick grass, and she slipped and slid to the foot of the hill. Ignoring the wet green grass stains on her legs and shorts, she bounced to her feet and raced for the border of the park.

Akane gaped at the sight for a moment, then raced to catch up to her sister. “Nabiki, what happened?” she demanded again as they ran.

“Ranma was ... was summoned,” Nabiki got out between breaths. “I think I ... know where, but ... have to get there before ... they move.” Then she fell silent as she somehow managed to force a little more speed from her pumping legs.

/\

Ranma’s vision cleared and the succubus hastily glanced around, to find herself floating in a newly-familiar room — concrete floor, shelves and desk full of books, candles, incense, chalk, check. It was the shed she and Nabiki had visited earlier that day. The sallow-faced, sunken-eyed boy she recognized from school was new, though.

At the sight of Gosunkugi, Ranma threw herself forward only to recoil painfully as she collided with an unseen barrier. Right, the summoning circle she was inside of was new, too. “Gosunkugi, just what the hell d’ya think you’re playin’ at?” she growled as she rubbed stinging hands. When she got out of here ...

Gosunkugi grinned viciously as he stared at his prize. “Finally, I did it!” he exulted, ignoring the angry nature spirit. “Now I’ll show that puffed up new blood her place. So, should I take my new acquisition to school tomorrow, or stash her in my room for a few days and break her in first and let Nabiki wonder what’s happened to her fuck-toy? Yes, I think that’s the way to go....”

“Yeah, right, like I’m gonna let ya touch me!” Ranma shouted, ignoring the sinking sensation in her gut — the Initiate in front of her seemed very sure of himself....

“Oh, you won’t have a choice,” Gosunkugi replied dismissively as he placed a lid on the incense burner and began snuffing out the candles placed around the circle. “I summoned you, and you are mine to command. If I tell you to follow your former owner around all day to show off what she can’t have anymore, you’ll do it. Actually, that’s not a bad idea, but it’s not enough. Let’s see ... why don’t I have you whisper a description of the sex we have in her ear each morning, let’s see how well she does in school with _that_ in her head! I suppose once I get tired of you I could let some of the servants have some fun and have you report that....”

Ranma felt her heart freeze at Gosunkugi’s words, hazy images of just what he was threatening crowding into her mind despite her best efforts to force them away. As the teenage Initiate’s tirade continued, piling image on image, each more perverted and degrading than the last, the Voice whispering in the back of the succubus’s mind rose in response to her gathering despair and a shuddering Ranma fought desperately not to let it sweep her away — however much she was tempted to leave Gosunkugi a next-to-mindless husk, but, _No! Nabiki will be looking for me, she’s probably on the way to the shed right now, Akane will be with her._ Nabiki ...

Suddenly, the echo of the Voice resonating through Ranma’s mind crescendoed and the room around the nature spirit vanished in a blazing kaleidoscope of light, washing her away. When her vision cleared, she was stunned to find herself floating in a summoning circle in the room she shared with Nabiki, her stunned fiancée staring at her with wide eyes. Ranma tried to shout her relief, but what came out was, “What happened? Where the hell is this?”

“Who are you?” Nabiki asked.

_Who am I? I’m Ranma!_ Ranma tried to look down at herself, but her head refused to move and she found herself saying, “Don’t freak out, I’m not a ghost or anything like that.”

“Of course not,” Nabiki replied, shock fading — and was that fear? “You’re a nature spirit, and from your human shape, probably represent an emotion or other thing associated with man.”

“Ah! You can see me?” Ranma yelled as embarrassment flashed through her and her hands moved to cover her groin. “I’m naked!” _Wait, this is the first time I met Nabs!_ Ranma managed to think through her shock and the Voice sounding through her, distracting her from what was happening. She watched as the first meeting continued playing itself out — her demand for hot water, Nabiki’s deal, her return to China — and tried to smile. That had been a good day, certainly a lot better than today was turning out to be — Nabiki was no Gosunkugi.

At that thought, Ranma mentally frowned to herself. Why _had_ it been such a good day? Certainly Nabiki wouldn’t have dreamed of the kind of sickening things Gosunkugi had been ranting about, but she was no saint — she would have had no compunctions about demanding the obedience summoning mandated. So why hadn’t she, why had she bargained instead of simply demanding like he was? _Maybe, because there is no obedience mandated. Did you actually feel any urge to kowtow to that sick bastard?_

Even as she considered the thought, the Voice slowly faded back toward its earlier whisper, the China landscape broke up into a swirl of colors to reform into the school shed, and the red-haired succubus found herself again staring at a still-ranting schoolboy, spittle actually spraying from his lips. _Okaaay ... so, let’s test this out._ Ranma turned her thoughts inward, testing her freedom and found ... nothing — not so much as a hint of anything restricting her in any way. Hopefully, that meant there wasn’t any instead of simply not being in use. Next step, get out of the circle.

As Gosunkugi finished his latest description, Ranma broke in. “I can see why ya don’t have a girlfriend. But as entertainin’ as you’ve been you’re wastin’ yer time — Nabiki’ll be here any moment, and that’ll be that.”

“Right, as if she knows where we are, she’ll never find us,” Gosunkugi sneered.

“Sure, she does — we’re in the shed at the high school where ya keep yer basics,” Ranma riposted with a nonchalant shrug.

Her summoner blanched and looked around wildly. “I have to get you home —” he started to say.

“Yeah, right, does yer pop know what you’ve been up to?” Ranma tossed out, and grinned viciously when Gosunkugi flinched. _Gotcha! Just like Akane was, all self-teaching an’ arrogance._

“Okay, the school, then,” Gosunkugi hastily decided. “I’ll just have to stash you in one of the storerooms and deal with your education later. You can think about what you have waiting for you until I can smuggle you into the house tomorrow. Follow me.” Scratching a break in the multi-colored lines of chalk, he turned toward the shed door.

“Yes!” Ranma flashed through the break in the circle and past her self-declared ‘master’. Whipping around the boy, she grabbed an arm and jerked him along with her as she passed. As Gosunkugi spun in place, staggering, the redhead flew to a corner of the shed, twisted around, and dove back toward him with her fist extended to bury it in his gut with all the force her speed allowed. Gosunkugi doubled up, and Ranma grabbed an arm to lock the elbow and used it as a brace to spin around and crack a heel into the back of her summoner’s head, driving him face-first into the floor. She flew to the ceiling, then back down feet first to smash into his upper back, feeling ribs crack under the impact. She was flying toward the ceiling again when Gosunkugi rolled onto his back and stared up at her as she twisted around for another dive.  He ignored her normally fascinating exposed nakedness to focus on her rage-twisted face. “B-B-Begone!” he stammered out, and the world whited out.

When her vision returned, the succubus found herself floating in the park where she had been training Akane. She looked around wildly, but the park was empty in the early evening drizzle, the only sign that anyone had been there her soaked clothes still lying on the ground where the Tendo sisters had left them in their haste. Choking back a sob, she manifested her red bat-like wings and flew as fast as she could toward the dojo and Nabiki’s wards.


	8. Taking the Masks Off

Nabiki leaned against her and Ranma’s tree on the school grounds, gasping for breath as Akane looked around, her breathing only slightly raised. (Nabiki grimaced as she again resolved to start exercising again — darn it!) “Soooo ... Ranma’s around here somewhere?” the youngest Tendo asked, confused.

“Shed ... against school ... grounds wall,” Nabiki gasped out between pants.

Akane looked around again, her eyes passing unseeing over the storage shed. “What shed?” she asked in bewilderment.

“Magic ... give me a moment,” Nabiki got out, and Akane nodded and waited, fidgeting, as Nabiki’s breathing slowed down to close to normal. Finally, Nabiki straightened and opened a pocket on her book bag. Pulling out a couple of cheap rings, she checked the kanji carved into them, dropped them into one of the pockets of her shorts, and latched onto her sister’s upper arm as she handed her the book bag. “This way,” she said, guiding Akane toward the shed in the middle of the stretch of school grounds wall. They were six feet away when she felt her sister tense.

“Wha — !”

Nabiki whirled to slap a hand across Akane’s mouth. “Shhhh! We don’t want him to know we’re here,” she whispered in her sister’s ear.

Akane nodded, then when Nabiki removed her hand, whispered, “Who?”

“Gosunkugi,” Nabiki replied distractedly as she quickly thought. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going in, and you’ll stay out here — I have defenses against magical threats you don’t, yet.” Nabiki decided that mentioning the minimal defenses she’d long since placed on all of her family and regularly renewed could wait until later — like when she strengthened them, she would want them present for the final stage of that, anyway. “But if you hear anything that sounds like fighting or I shout for help, come running. Got it?”

Akane nodded without saying a word, the worry radiating from her saying all that needed to be said, and Nabiki turned to tiptoe up to the door as Akane slipped forward to plaster herself against the shed wall beside it. Pausing, Nabiki pressed an ear to the door but couldn’t hear anything but a faint whimpering moan. Shrugging to herself as she glanced at her sister, she stepped back and with a single solid kick smashed in the door, snapping the hinges, and charged through right behind it only to freeze at the sight of the sunken-eyed underclassman on his knees with his arms clutching at his chest and moaning in pain. Tears streamed down his cheeks and blood was running down his face from a flattened nose.

The Tendo Initiate glanced around the shed at the knocked over candles and smeared chalk, eyes narrowing at the still-visible line drawn through what was left of the summoning circle, then began to giggle as she looked back over at the Gosunkugi scion. Her giggles quickly turned to laughter, until she was bent over clutching her sides. Through her laughter she heard Gosunkugi growling and her guffaws choked off instantly when she glanced over to find him glaring at her even as malevolent hatred like she’d never felt before beat against her. Not even her blackmail ‘clients’ that she’d met since becoming an empath had hated her so much. “You sick bastard, just what did Ranma ever do to you?” she snarled.

“Nothing — what do I care about some world-blind jock?” he managed to force out through clenched teeth, hatred undiminished as he forced himself to his feet, legs spread to brace himself, one hand on the wall.

“So it was an indirect attack on me, then? What did _I_ ever do to you?” When he failed to respond, Nabiki finally shrugged. “Not that it matters, since it looks like you just got an easy lesson in what happens when you summon someone you can’t control. Of course, you were stupid enough to think you _could_ control Ranma, weren’t you?” A vicious smile spread across her face. “Not a chance — not _that_ man! He’s worth a dozen of you. But then, you already know that now. Still, just to cement the lesson....”

Stepping back, she raised her hands as she fought to bring her own burning anger under control. _Let’s see, how do I do this? I want to leave him wondering for a little while, at least ... right!_ Early in her study of her new Art, she had read that performing the rituals in a mystical language could heighten their effectiveness, and she supposed it could — if it helped put the Initiate in the proper frame of mind by heightening the otherworldly feel of the performance. But when she’d eventually learned that in truth, _any_ foreign language would do, so long as it was connected in the caster’s mind to mysticism, and that Japanese would do just fine for well known rituals, she’d decided to mostly drop her language study to focus on the magic itself. Still, she’d kept up the study on a casual basis since even if she didn’t _really_ need it to enhance her usual rituals, she could easily imagine times that being able to perform her magic in a language few people could understand would have its uses — like now, as she pulled up in her mind’s eye the image of the circle for the Journeyman’s Curse, and Gosunkugi blanched as she began to chant in a distinctly Western language where the only words he recognized were his own full name.

Within seconds it was done, and the boy staggered as he felt the mystic currents within the room contract and wrap themselves about him. He stared at his nemesis, wide-eyed with shock — she had actually cast the ritual without any preparation, on _his_ consecrated ground, in seconds! “Wh-wh-what did you do?” he gasped.

Nabiki shrugged. “Just something to make your life ... interesting. Enjoy — and don’t forget that I’ll be keeping an eye on you. If I can do this here and now, just think of what I can do if I take the time to do it right.

“Oh, and one more thing, just so you don’t get the idea Ranma’s the only one that gets physical ...” Stepping forward, a leg slammed up into Gosunkugi’s crotch hard enough to lift him up onto his toes, and he shrieked as he collapsed to the cement floor. He curled into a ball and desperately clutched at himself, sobbing from the new pain added to the renewed pain of his cracked ribs and broken nose. “See you at school, maybe,” Nabiki said with a jaunty grin, and picked up the door before turning to walk out of the shed.

As soon as she was through the doorway and propped the door back in place she spun to the side where Akane was still plastered against the shed wall, grabbed her sister’s arm, and pulled her around the corner to the side against the school grounds wall. Pulling out the rings she’d earlier put in her pocket, she handed one to the youngest Tendo and slipped the other on her own finger. “Put on the ring, and concentrate on the thought that we’re hiding, nobody can see us!” she hissed. Akane stared at her for a moment in confusion, then nodded and slipped the ring on as her confusion vanished into determination.

A few minutes later, they heard the shed door thump down onto the grass, followed by Gosunkugi’s breathy gasping. A few seconds later he hobbled around the corner, still bent over. His eyes passed over the two girls as if they weren’t there, and he turned and hobbled back around out of sight. A minute later they heard the sounds of the door being propped up again.

Nabiki crept to peek around the corner of the shed, then motioned Akane to follow as she slipped along the school grounds wall toward the gates.

The two girls slunk through the gates, and Nabiki straightened with a sigh, slipped the ring off, and held out her hand for its partner. Akane slipped off her own borrowed ring and handed it over. “What was all that sneaking about? Were we invisible?”

“No, we weren’t,” Nabiki replied as she started down the block, Akane quickly catching up. “The rings are enchanted with an obscurity charm — wear them and try to hide or sneak somewhere, and they’ll make it harder for people to notice you. To Gosunkugi it looked like I vanished on an empty field.” _And he doesn’t know you were there at all._ “You heard what went on inside the shed?”

Akane nodded with a grin. “It sounded like Gosunkugi got Ranma, and wished he hadn’t.”

“Right in one. I think Ranma broke some ribs — I _know_ she broke his nose. Gosunkugi revoked the summoning before we arrived.”

“And what did _you_ do to him? What language was that?”

“Esperanto, and I cursed him with a variation of bad luck — if he doesn’t manage to guess what the variation is and revoke it sometime in the next few weeks, he’s going to have a _very_ interesting month at school.”

“He summons a naked girl who’s really a guy to ... to play with and that’s _it_?” Akane growled, hands tightening into fists.

Nabiki shrugged. “Besides the kick to the nuts I gave him, yes, for now — even if I was willing to try to kill him, I wouldn’t want to risk the backlash from failure by casting one of those rituals without extra preparations. Besides, I shocked him to his core, believe me — very few Initiates can do what I just did, and I very much doubt he’s one of them.” She stopped at the corner of the block. “Okay, Ranma will have bounced back to the park and probably will have either decided to wait there for us, or headed for home. Why don’t you go home and call me if he’s there, while I head for the park and see if he’s waiting? I need to collect his clothes, anyway.” _And it’ll get you behind my wards that much faster._

Akane nodded and broke into a run toward the dojo while Nabiki crossed the street as she headed for the park. As she did, she caught a hint of motion out of the corner of her eye. Turning her head to apparently watch her sister, she focused behind herself with both her sight and her Sight, and ... yes, there was an imp following her. Nabiki focused on Akane and the block behind her sister ... no, no imp — though some sprites were buzzing along behind the running girl. _Must be on the way to Party Central,_ Nabiki thought absentmindedly as she faced forward again and started to jog. If the imp was Gosunkugi’s spy there was nothing she could do to keep it from knowing about Akane now, and if it wasn’t she’d worry about it later — one crisis at a time.

/oOo\

Akane was gasping when she arrived at the front gate to her family’s compound, just like when racing Ranma home. Sprinting, it seemed, wasn’t the same as jogging — at least when she wasn’t being slowed down by her older sister. (She carefully didn’t consider the way Ranma’s breathing at those times was as easy as hers had been back at the school.)

Without pausing to catch her breath, the youngest Tendo hurriedly opened the gate, stepped through — and froze in place, stunned. There, moving along the flowers Kasumi had planted along the walkway to the front door, she could sense little points of ... something. They had the same feel as Ranma in spirit form, but were much, much smaller. And there were more among the flowers along the compound walls, and when she walked around the side of the house, more skimming the surface of the koi pond, and ... a whole flock of them circling around another, human-sized patch of ‘presence’ circling and spinning in mid-air. The bigger one was human- _shaped_ , as well as human-sized, and female, and felt tantalizingly familiar.

_Is that Ranma?_ Akane thought, staring at the empty space that her ‘new’ sense was telling her wasn’t empty. Then, staring around at all the other tiny ‘presences’, added, _And where did_ these _all come from? Were they always here and I just didn’t know it? Is this what the world is like for Nabiki and Kasumi, full of life nobody else can see?_

After a moment Akane shook herself free of her contemplation of the scene and headed for the entrance into the family room, ignoring the two fathers at their eternal game of shogi as she called for her oldest sister as soon as she was inside the house.

An answering call came from the kitchen, and Akane dashed down the hall and into the room to latch onto her sister’s arm and pull her towards the kitchen door leading to the outside lawn. “Kasumi, come here, quick, I need you to look at something!” she urged. Kasumi allowed herself to be pulled out and around the house, until the two sisters stepped around the corner to look toward the koi pond, and all the dancing lifes around and above it.

Akane pointed toward the spot where she could sense the human-sized life. “Is that Ranma?” she asked. When she didn’t get a response, she turned to find Kasumi staring at the scene, mouth agape. “Kasumi? Kasumi!”

Jolted out of her shock, Kasumi turned to her youngest sister. “Yes, Akane?”

“Is that Ranma?” Akane demanded, again pointing.

“Yes ... yes, it is.”

“Good.” Akane pulled her personal cell phone out of her school bag, and typed in a speed-dial number. “Nabiki, Ranma’s home —” ... “I can’t really tell, he’s still in his nature spirit form.” Turning to Kasumi, she asked, “Does Ranma look all right to you?”

“You can’t see her yourself?” Kasumi asked, surprised. When Akane shook her head, she held out her hand for the cell phone. “Nabiki, as far as I can tell, Ranma’s fine.” ... “No, I can’t ask, Ranma doesn’t seem to really be aware of her surroundings, and she’s dancing over the koi pond, I can’t reach her.” ... “Yes, dancing — and she’s surrounded by sprites dancing with her. I recognize some of them, but most —” ... “I haven’t tried yet, give me a minute.”

The brown-haired girl walked over to the koi pond and around the edge away from the house, some of the points of life that Akane assumed were the ‘sprites’ her sister had mentioned swirling out of her way and about her legs. One flew up in front of Kasumi’s face, keeping pace with her walking, and Kasumi said something too low for Akane to understand and smiled at the equally indecipherable response.

Stopping about a quarter of the way around the edge of the pond, she looked up toward Ranma. “Ranma!” she called softly, then when she didn’t get a response tried again more loudly, then shouted, then shouted again while jumping up and down and waving her hands over her head. Nothing — the human-sized and -shaped ‘presence’ that was Ranma stayed where it was.

Akane took a deep breath, and walked forward to join her sister, wading through what seemed like a sea of lifes, fighting the urge to spin in place as some of them swirled around behind her. “ ... didn’t work,” she heard her sister say into the cell phone as she walked up. “Peach Fuzz, one of the sprites I know, says that Ranma is ‘dancing to the rhythm of the Voice’, and that the sprites dancing with her are ‘keeping her grounded’, whatever that means.” ... “No, Mother Nodoka isn’t home, someone called and she said she had to go out, not to wait up.” ... “Right, we’ll be waiting.”

Closing the cell phone, Kasumi handed it back to her sister. “Nabiki says that she’s going to finish collecting Ranma’s clothing before she comes home, to just leave Ranma alone until she gets here. Come on, let me fix you a snack while we’re waiting.” She circled around the koi pond toward the house entrance.

Akane hesitantly followed, pausing before entering the house for a last wondering look at the dance she couldn’t see but knew was there.

/\

Nabiki sighed with relief as she hit the disconnect button on her cell phone, then resumed her walk through the park toward where she had been enjoying the evening while Ranma and Akane sparred, such a short time before. _Well, at least she’s safe behind my wards, and now I can probably stop worrying about her — him — wanting to go succubus full-time,_ she thought in an attempt to find a silver lining to their cloud of misfortune as the small hill came into view, still scattered with Ranma’s clothes.

She was walking up the hill toward the clothes when a tanned, blonde woman stepped away from the tree Nabiki had been sitting under earlier. Nabiki paused, eyes widening at the sight of the elongated diamonds on the newcomer’s forehead, the triangles on her cheeks — the complete absence of any sense of her presence other than sight, not even the hint of stench that Ranma had mentioned — then resumed walking. Bending down to scoop up Ranma’s shirt, she said, “Mara, I presume?”

“Ah, Ranma told you about me,” the demon replied dryly.

“Yes, he did,” Nabiki agreed as she gathered up the rest of the clothes. Straightening, she continued, “He told me about the offer you made him. Are you thinking that this evening’s little adventure will change his mind? Or that I should help you change it for him?”

“No,” Mara said with a shrug. “No, Ranma’s much too stubborn to allow even this to change his mind. Actually, I’m here to talk to you.”

“To me,” Nabiki repeated. She glanced up as the faint drizzle from earlier resumed, then walked up the hill past Mara to the tree. Putting her school bag and the clothes she’d collected down on the grass, she turned to lean back nonchalantly against the trunk and asked the demon now downhill from her, “You’re here to make me an offer?”

“Yes, I am,” Mara agreed, suppressing a grin at Nabiki’s unconscious play for the upper position. At least, she _thought_ it was unconscious — not many people would have the chutzpah to play dominance games with a major demon, but she wasn’t trying to recruit the girl because she was like most people. The demon walked up to join Nabiki under the tree (and coincidentally place her on the same level as the mortal girl). “Basically, the offer is the same as what I offered your fiancé, only moreso — a troubleshooter and lieutenant in my service, both as a single operator and as a team leader and manager, as the situation warrants.”

“Why me?” Nabiki asked, frowning. “Sure, I’m more powerful than most Awakened, but I’m hardly unique. And I’m only seventeen years old, seriously inexperienced and self-trained with all that implies, no powerful patron, hardly what I’d think you’d be looking for in an agent.”

Mara shrugged again. “If I was talking about a short-term relationship, you’d be right. But I’m talking about a relationship that would outlast your mortal life, and for _that_ your potential and character are more important than your current capabilities.”

“Outlast my life? My _character_?” Nabiki squeaked, shaken out of her calm, disinterested front. “What about my character makes me attractive to a _demon_?”

“Oh, nothing you’d find too terrible I think,” Mara replied nonchalantly. “Your innate competence, ruthlessness and intense loyalty to your family and now your fiancé combined with a lack of devotion to larger causes and any hint of sadism or power-hunger, basically. And yes, it would continue into the next life — you’d essentially become a demon yourself, when you die.”

As Nabiki just stared at Mara in stunned amazement, the blonde woman sighed. “Nabiki, demons are rather misunderstood. Yes, we seek to corrupt people, foment all the nastiness we are accused of, but what few realize is that we are _testing_ — sorting the evil from the good, seeing to it that people’s true natures are revealed and that they receive what they truly deserve. What would the world be like if we weren’t out here, stirring things up? If we left it to the gods?”

“I ... it would be a utopia,” Nabiki said hesitantly. “No crime, no wars ...”

“Really? Would those tendencies be eliminated? Or just suppressed until they broke out?” Mara asked. “And even if you’re right, what kind of life would that be? Would you _enjoy_ living in such a peaceful, unchanging, unchallenging _passive_ world? No, the world is a better place, the human race stronger, because we are here to test its quality.”

Nabiki stared at Mara for a time, then shook off her shock. “What about Kasumi and Tofu-san? How are _they_ being ‘tested’ by being cursed? What’s the _point_?” she demanded.

“They aren’t the ones that were tested,” Mara disagreed. “Ono-san rejected the advances of a woman with more power than sense, and she summoned a demon — one rather more powerful than your imps — bound it and ordered it to curse him, so that he would experience true love but never be able to enjoy it. As you can imagine, she will be ours when she dies.”

Nabiki winced, but soldiered on. “And what’s in it for me? If my lack of devotion to abstractions is a plus, you can hardly expect me to just sign up for the good of the human race!”

“True enough,” Mara agreed instantly. “What’s in it for you is security for yourself and your expanded family. In Gosunkugi you’ve made a bad enemy, and as soon as he gets some medical attention for the beating Ranma gave him he’s going to dive back into those books he borrowed from his family’s library with new eyes. He’ll soon be cursing himself for a fool and looking for a way out from under the debt he now owes us for the services he’s demanded, but he could also just turn out to be dangerous.

“And then there’s his father — that man may choose to back up his son when he finds out what he’s been up to, he may not, but he’s a patriot and he’s _definitely_ going to be after your fiancé once he realizes just what Ranma’s succubus form represents. If you agree to serve me, you won’t have to worry about him, or any other threats to your family at all — we take _good_ care of our people.”

“What _Ranma_ represents? What are you talking about? Succubae aren’t exactly in huge demand except as sex toys, and I can’t imagine a nature spirit more dangerous to use for as a sex toy against its will than Ranma. He’s learned a lot that no natural-born succubus ever would have.”

“Ah, you missed it, interesting,” Mara mused, arching an eyebrow. “I think I’ll leave it to you to puzzle out as an exercise for the student.” Gazing at the middle Tendo searchingly for a long moment, then turning to gaze out at the faint misting the drizzle had turned into as they talked, Mara added, “There’s no need for you to make up your mind right now. Do your research, think it over, and if you decide to take me up on my offer you know my name — use a summoning circle to alert me, and I’ll drop in to see you when I’m free.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a corporate mover and shaker in China I need to look in on. I wonder how much longer those idiots will take to create the popular uprising that’ll sweep them away? Some free advice — if you have any investments in Chinese companies, you might want to consider redistributing your portfolio in the next few years.”

With that, the Mara started to stride down the hill, then paused. “One more thing to consider,” she said. “Ranma’s immortal, now — half of him, anyway — and you aren’t. As it stands, when you die you’ll move on, either reincarnation or your final reward, and will be leaving Ranma behind. If you accept my offer, there’s no reason the two of you couldn’t continue your relationship into eternity.” And then she was off toward the edge of the park, leaving behind a confused and deeply worried young woman.


	9. Aftershocks

Nabiki stared up at the beautiful naked body that had become so familiar over the past weeks, illuminated in the dimming light of dusk, as an oblivious Ranma continued to spin and tumble in the air over the koi pond, surrounded by a loose cloud of sprites spinning in orbit around her. As she watched, the middle Tendo could feel herself relaxing under the soothing wave of serene, happy peace radiating from her lover and, to a lesser extent, her diminutive dance partners. Glancing over at the slim, brunette sprite hovering in the air by her shoulder, she asked, “You’re sure there’s no danger?”

“No, no danger,” Peach Fuzz assured her, smiling up at the scene. “So long as we are with her, she won’t get lost in the Voice — we’ll make sure she finds her way back.”

Nabiki frowned slightly. “But the ... the vision Ranma had, when she first discovered the Voice ... some newborn succubae get lost,” she said questioningly.

“True, but Nabs, they’re born _alone_ — nobody around to help them. Even just one may not be enough. But this? No worries at all.”

Nabiki shot the sprite a stern look. “ _Nabiki_ , not ‘Nabs’,” she said firmly.

“Why? Ranma calls you that.”

“Yes, he does, but he’s permitted. He’s ... special,” Nabiki replied, her gaze softening as it returned to the busty redhead.

Peach Fuzz followed her gaze, and the two simply watched together for a few minutes. Finally, the sprite murmured, “You know, I think I envy you this.”

“ ‘Envy me’ what?”

“Envy you your love for each other,” Peach Fuzz replied. “We sprites form close friendships, have ... what was that phrase I heard recently? ... ‘friends with benefits’, from what I’ve seen I think the sex is as good for us as it is for you, but no sprite has ever fallen in love. We don’t really _need_ it, of course, if we did we’d have it. But sometimes I wonder.”

Unsure what to say, Nabiki was silent for a minute. Still watching her fiancé, she finally murmured, “As a little girl, what I wanted for my birthday more than anything was a pair of wings — hawk wings, not the flimsy bug-type pair you have,” she added, flashing a grin at the sprite. “I would dream about being a bird, soaring over the city, dancing on the wind....” Her voice trailed off, and Peach Fuzz chuckled.

“I guess it’s what we don’t have that we want.” Abruptly perking up, the sprite whipped around to hover in front of Nabiki, a happy smile spread across her tiny face. “Enough of this maudlinity! Now, you just go ahead and do what you need to, we’ll keep an eye on your lover girl.” And with that, she spiraled up to join the others around Ranma, trilling laughter as she went.

Nabiki watched Peach Fuzz join the festivities, a thoughtful frown on her face — the sprite had been a bit too serious and, well ... deep for what were supposed to be flighty, live-for-the-day types. Finally, she shrugged. _Think about it later, you have more important things to worry about right now,_ she told herself, and turned to head toward the house. It was getting too late to start strengthening her wards and protections yet again, that would have to wait until tomorrow after school, but she could begin researching ways to protect her fiancé from summoning. Both of the two alternatives she knew of at the moment, the link for a familiar and a binding for a particular purpose, had serious problems — at least when one considered their target (not to say victim) as a person rather than a tool. She did her best to suppress thoughts of Mara’s offer, as it once again played back in the back of her mind.

She stepped through the panels that opened on the corridor, scowled as she glanced into the family room at the two fathers playing yet another game of shogi, then shrugged wryly and went in search of her sisters, especially Kasumi. People are what they are, and the sisters needed to discuss plans and schedules for the rest of the week. They were probably going to have to put off their first attempt to break the curse on her older sister and wanna-be lover, Nabiki reluctantly decided. She would have to stop by on the way to school and give the good doctor the bad news.

/oOo\

Nodoka gripped the hilt of her katana tightly as she stepped through the door into the bedroom of the newlyweds whose plight had been passed on to her. The couple had been almost pathetically happy to see her — they had already signed all the paperwork for buying the apartment and didn’t think ‘we’re afraid of the ghosts’ would be an acceptable reason for voiding the contract. They were waiting down the short hall in the main room, ready to run at a moment’s notice.

For a moment the Scout couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary in the light from the streetlights outside the window, then a barely visible, translucent young woman holding an infant in her lap slowly appeared. The two were by the window, apparently sitting on empty air, the woman gazing fondly down at the smiling girl she was bouncing on her knee. The woman looked up, a smile of welcome on her face that suddenly transformed into an expression of sheer horror. She shot to her feet, baby in her arms and mouth opening in a silent scream, only to have her head rock back and bounce off the wall. She crumpled, child falling with her, but the two vanished from sight before they could hit the floor. For a few minutes the room was empty, then the woman and little girl reappeared, again sitting on empty air.

Nodoka sighed with relief, releasing the grip on her katana, and stepped out of the bedroom. Closing the door behind her, she walked down the short hall to the front room to join the waiting couple.

The two young people sitting on a couch ( _not all that much older than Ranma and Nabiki_ , she thought wistfully) rose to their feet at her approach, Eriko clutching her husband Keiji’s arm. “Well? What do you think?” Keiji asked eagerly.

“You can relax, Sasaki-san,” Nodoka reassured him, “you aren’t being haunted by an actual ghost. Instead, what you have is an echo.”

“Would you like that drink now?” Eriko asked, releasing her husband and turning toward the open kitchen area. “And what do you mean, ‘an echo’?”

“Yes, thank you, I will have that drink,” Nodoka agreed.

A few minutes later, the couple back on the couch and Nodoka in a chair, all with drinks in hand, she continued, “Sometimes an event will be powerful enough that the people involved will actually leave an imprint of what happened ... a ‘recording’, you could say ... that constantly repeats the event over and over when in the presence of the living. Usually it is much too faint for most people to see, but occasionally, during the right time of year — often the anniversary of the event, but sometimes other times — it’ll strengthen enough to become visible to everyone. On rare occasions, even sounds can be heard. Echoes can be frightening, but they aren’t dangerous unless you have a weak heart.

“Now for what that means for you, in a day or so the echo should again weaken to the point that you can’t see it. You could simply spend a few nights at a love hotel, and everything will be fine when you come back — until the next time that it strengthens. And no, I can’t say when that will be. I can give you some likely dates, but some times will be unique to the people that made the echo. Or, for a small donation you can arrange for a priest to come and bless the room. If he is a true priest, the power of that blessing should wash away the imprint left behind.

“And now,” she continued, rising to her feet, “it is late, and I have an early morning to look forward to.”

The relieved newlyweds hastily rose to their feet, expressing their heartfelt thanks for the older woman’s help and promising to make a sizeable donation to the nearest shrine at the earliest opportunity. A few minutes later, Nodoka was smiling happily at the night around a yawn as she walked towards the train station. It was always a joy to be able to help the young ones, and this had been an easy one. Then her smile disappeared as she thought of the echo she had seen. One thing she hadn’t mentioned to the couple and doubted they’d realized, seeing how from what they’d said neither had stayed in the room long enough to see the full cycle, was that echoes most often involved violent deaths — and that looked to be the case this time. She was going to need to do some research about that apartment, find out who the woman and child had been and what had happened to them.

/oOo\

Gosunkugi tried not to move his torso as he closed the heavy tome on his bedroom desk, but despite his best efforts a stab of pain from his cracked ribs shot through him, and he drew a shuddering breath as he reminded himself that he had been very, very lucky. For some unknown reason, perhaps out of instinct because he was a human that turned into a succubus, Ranma had stayed within the confines of the shed as she maneuvered for the strikes against him — if she had treated the wall and roof as ghosts instead of obstacles and gone for more distance, the doctor would have probably been extracting broken ribs from the young Initiate’s lungs. _If you lived long enough to make it to the hospital, that is,_ he thought grimly. Fortunately, his father had apparently bought his story about a pack of bullies and had agreed to leave retribution in his son’s hands as practice in what he’d officially learned so far of the Art. And yes, there was going to be retribution, indeed!

_And you’re thinking about this to avoid your_ other _problem, aren’t you?_ The pasty-faced underclassman glanced again at the book on summoning his father didn’t know he’d ‘borrowed’ from the family library, and fought to keep from shuddering. He could not _believe_ how badly he had misunderstood what he had read — how his belief in the superiority of his blood had blinded him to what that superiority _meant_. He had completely missed the fact that the quality of his descent was in the gifts and opportunities it gave him, and come to believe that it was a power in itself. Now, his idiocy had resulted in debts owed to the demons he had summoned that would sooner or later come due — though the fact that he’d only dealt with imps for spying and petty harassment should keep the damage from being _too_ bad, and his young age meant he should have a few years before anything came due.

Which meant that, for now at least, he could concentrate on Nabiki ... and Ranma.

/oOo\

Nabiki groaned as she forced her eyes open and lifted her head to look at the clock on her desk past the red hair of the succubus curled against her, then groaned again. She’d never been a morning person to begin with, considering how late she’d finally given up on her research for the night and called Ranma in to bed her normal wake-up time would have been bad enough, and it wasn’t close her normal wake-up time.

Ranma stirred in her arms as the knock on their bedroom door sounded again. Opening her eyes, the succubus looked toward — and through — the door. “Huh, I wonder what Mom wants,” the redhead mused as she slipped out of Nabiki’s embrace and floated up into the middle of the room.

“Only one way to find out,” Nabiki grumbled as she sat up and rubbed at bleary eyes, blanket pooling about her hips to reveal the T-shirt she normally slept in. “Come in!” she called out more loudly, and after a moment the door opened to reveal her future mother-in-law and sensei in the mystic arts, looking refreshed and wide-awake in a worn keikogi and hakama, a bundle of clothes in one hand and a bokken in the other.

Nabiki groaned at the sight. “Nodo — Mother, I know you didn’t get home until after we went to bed, and that was too late! Why aren’t you still in bed?”

Nodoka shrugged, one eyebrow rising. “I didn’t want to put off your first morning of training, so I used a refreshening ritual. Why were you up so late on a week night?”

“Refreshening ritual? Training?” Nabiki asked, focusing on the part of Nodoka’s comment that mattered most to her at the moment.

“Yes, you don’t ... ? Well, obviously not or you wouldn’t ask. Yes, it is possible for a sufficiently powerful or skilled Initiate to put off the effects of fatigue for a time. They’re only delayed rather than eliminated, though, so it isn’t something you can do very often without hurting yourself. And as for training, not all threats to an Initiate are mystical, some are very physical — and even some of the mystical ones can be handled by a properly prepared katana. While I don’t expect you to become a competition-level practitioner, I _do_ expect you to achieve basic competency. So, why were you up so late last night?”

“Damn, I could have used that,” Nabiki muttered, grimacing as visions of all too many way too early mornings to come passed before her eyes. _Well, girl, you wanted someone to train you instead of this catch-as-catch-can self-study you’ve been doing so far, and you got it._ She waved toward the seat at her desk. “For why I was up late last night, Ranma, Akane and I had an ... interesting evening after you left.”

Ranma had perked up at the mention of training and even more when she heard it would be with the katana (Genma had included some weapons training, but only enough that Ranma could use them without embarrassing himself — which put him ahead of most practitioners, considering his skill in unarmed combat), but now Nabiki winced at the disgusted angry fear suddenly radiating from the cute redhead. Looking up, she spread her arms. “Get down here, Ranma,” she ordered. Ranma quickly obeyed, and Nabiki hugged the stiff succubus, fighting her own burning anger. She’d insisted they review in their shared dream what had happened when Ranma had been summoned, and now she ached with her own need to rend and destroy like she hadn’t felt since her best friend’s betrayal that had led to her Awakening.

But that wasn’t what Ranma needed to be sensing right now after reliving the whole ugly incident, and she throttled back her hatred and focused on the joy her armful had brought into her life. “No ducking into the Voice, this time,” she whispered in Ranma’s ear, running her hands up and down along Ranma’s sides. Ranma nodded jerkily, and the middle Tendo and Nodoka waited until Ranma slowly relaxed under the gentle caresses and waves of love and concern washing over her from her mother and lover.

Nabiki waited until Ranma was practically limp and purring in her arms, then quickly ran through their separate run-ins with Gosunkugi. By the time she was finished, Nodoka was on her feet pacing back and forth, hand gripping her bokken’s hilt so tightly her knuckles were bleached white. Whirling to face Nabiki, she growled, “I don’t care if that idiot is a Gosunkugi, this cannot be allowed to go unpunished!”

Nabiki shook her head, smiling wryly at the role reversal. “Isn’t it the student that’s supposed to be calling for immediate action and the mentor counseling patience?” she asked with forced lightness, feeling Ranma beginning to tense up again under the onslaught of her mother’s anger. “Gosunkugi didn’t actually _do_ anything, Ranma at least cracked the idiot’s ribs if he — she — didn’t break them, I did my best to emasculate him, and he’s due some _serious_ bad luck in school from my Journeyman’s Curse. Leave it, if he didn’t learn anything from this fiasco I’m sure he’ll give us further opportunity to let him know what we think of him. But what did you mean, you ‘don’t care if he’s a Gosunkugi’?”

Nodoka broke off her pacing, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths as she fought her anger under control. Finally, she resumed her seat and did her best to review what Nabiki had told her with a clear mind. “This is bad, very bad,” she finally said. “The Gosunkugi family aren’t people you want for enemies — their name is on that list of possible demon summoners I gave you earlier. And while they aren’t as traditional as I used to be, they are firmly stuck in the past. They think our major mistake leading up to the last war wasn’t adopting the ways of the fascists, but that we didn’t invade Siberia instead of hitting Hawaii and taking southeast Asia, that we should have put off a war with the United States until after we’d consolidated our conquests in China and had developed the Siberian resources. But why would they be attacking you? Why would this ‘Mara’ say that it’s because they’re patriots?”

Nabiki closed her eyes and reviewed what she’d tasted of Gosunkugi’s emotions the previous evening as well as what she could remember of their few previous face-to-face encounters. Finally, she shrugged. “I don’t really know,” she admitted. “Considering that Gosunkugi didn’t know what he was doing yesterday I don’t think the rest of his family is involved, yet. But I can’t think of anything I might have done to offend him, and I think what I sensed mixed in with his hatred yesterday was jealousy. I just can’t imagine why he’d be jealous of me.”

Nodoka simply gazed at her for a long moment, then shook her head. “You really don’t understand, do you?” she mused. “For you, magic must just be a tool or a threat. But for the Gosunkugi family, it’s what they _are_ — without it, they’re nothing, their history revolves around it. Much like Saotome-san and the martial arts, now that I think of it, we’ll have to make sure Ranma’s more well-rounded.”

Ranma grimaced, relaxing again as the supercharged emotions faded into intellectual consideration. “That means payin’ more attention in school, right?”

“Well, paying attention, anyway,” her mother responded, smiling at her child for a moment before looking back up at Nabiki. “I suspect that your own level of initiation outstrips his by a wide margin, and considering that they believe themselves to be among the elite, perhaps he didn’t take it well. But why did this keep you up so late last night? It sounds as if everything was over by sundown.”

“It was, but I spent hours after getting home looking for some way to protect Ranma from being summoned.”

Ranma straightened, twisting out of Nabiki’s hug to hover a few feet away. “Did ya find anything?” she asked eagerly.

Nabiki shook her head. “No, I didn’t — or rather, nothing beyond the three ways I already knew of, and none of them are exactly optimal.”

“So, what are they?” the red-haired succubus demanded. “Maybe we can use one a’ them until ya think a’ something better.”

“Well, the first you already know, it’s how we first met.” Nabiki paused for a moment, smiling fondly as she remembered the day a busty redhead with a cute smile showed up in her broken summoning circle instead of the ugly death, or worse, that she’d feared, before refocusing on Ranma. “If I cast a summoning and go for as much time as I can, it should last for up to a week. With that in place, anyone else trying to summon you would have to overcome the strength of the ritual as well as your own willpower. The problem is that that would mean you’d bounce to me whenever you get splashed — not the worst thing that can happen, but not exactly convenient if, say, you want to spar with Akane as a succubus. Also, if someone was attacking someone you were trying to protect other than me, all he’d have to do is splash you with cold water and you’d instantly be somewhere else, maybe miles away or more.”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t work so good,” Ranma agreed. “Kinda hard ta protect the weak if a splash a’ cold water sends ya on yer way.”

“Right. Now, the second two ways are more permanent, but both have serious problems — the familiar bond and the purpose bond.”

Nodoka winced, and Ranma looked confused at the disgust she felt suddenly radiating from her mother. “I take it they’re bad,” she said.

“Oh, yes,” Nabiki agreed. “Well, actually, the familiar link isn’t so bad, so long as it’s limited to an animal. It forms a bond between the target and the Initiate that lasts so long as they both live. Through the link the master will always know where the familiar is and can use any or all of its senses — see through its eyes, hear through its ears, smell what it smells, feel what it feels. The master can also draw on the familiar’s energy to stay alert during long castings. The familiar cannot even consider harming its master, and must follow any orders it’s given as best it can. This is all fine — so long as the familiar is an animal or nonsentient nature spirit. If it’s a sentient nature spirit or demon, you might as well use the term ‘slave’ instead of ‘familiar’ — _not_ what I want our relationship to be like.”

Ranma grimaced. “Ya got that right,” she agreed, then blanched at a sudden thought. “Could Gosunkugi summon me an’ do that to me?” she asked, looking sick.

A suddenly uncertain and concerned Nabiki glanced at Nodoka.

“Yes, but not easily,” Nodoka reassured her ‘daughter’. “One problem with using the familiar bond on sentients is that it can be resisted by the victim. That’s why almost all familiars are either animals or very weak demons — the animals _can’t_ resist, at least not effectively, and low level demons usually _don’t want_ to resist. They’ll use the period of servitude to encourage their ‘masters’ to become more and more corrupt. Nature spirits are another matter — they’ll fight the forming bond, and so for a nature spirit with any real strength of will, the Initiate will need an extended casting time to strengthen the ritual, help from other Initiates or quite a few supporters, some way to weaken the will of the victim first, or more likely some mix of the three. If this Gosunkugi scion is working alone as Nabiki thinks, he is very unlikely to be able to do any of that.”

Ranma sighed with relief, color returning to her face. (Nabiki wondered for a moment at how closely succubae mimicked humans, seeing how they didn’t have blood, or anything like it, and most humans couldn’t even see them.) “So, what’s the last way?” the succubus asked.

“ _That_ one’s nasty,” Nabiki said with a shudder, and Ranma winced at the disgust her mother was again radiating. Her fiancée continued, “The purpose bond is where a spirit or demon is bound to a task rather than a person. The task can be anything from as simple as ‘guard this treasure’ to as complicated as ‘look after this family’s well-being’. This type of bond is only used on demons or sentient nature spirits, because the nonsentient spirits will usually be so bound up in the task that they starve to death — the ones that ‘eat’, anyway. And unlike the familiar bond, this one doesn’t end when the Initiate that cast the ritual dies — if enough people are involved in the ritual, it can take centuries, even millennia for it to weaken enough for the demon or nature spirit to break free.”

Pausing for a moment as she thought over what she’d said, Nabiki added, “I’ve wondered how nature spirits bound to one room keep from going insane, I figured the stories of the djinn trapped in centuries in bottles were examples of that. But I suppose the Voice would be a big help in keeping trapped nature spirits mentally stable.”

“Okay-y-y ... so neither a’ those will work, so what will?”

“I don’t know,” Nabiki admitted. “I’ve gone through all the books I’ve managed to pick up again and didn’t find anything new. You, Mother?”

Nodoka shook her head. “No, nothing I can think —” Breaking off, she thought for a moment, then actually grinned. “Actually, there _is_ something we can do ... or I can do, rather. Am I correct that Gosunkugi knows Ranma’s name?” The two teenagers exchanged glances and nodded. “Good, that means he’ll be using it in any attempted summonings. But _I’m_ the one that has official custody of Ranma, and the only reason I kept the Saotome family name when I divorced Saotome-san was so that Ranma would have an easier time finding me if he ever looked. Now that we’re together again, there’s no reason I can’t go back to my maiden name — and Ranma, as well.”

Nabiki grinned viciously at the thought. “Oh, that’s _beautiful_. We can keep ‘Saotome’ as Ranma’s use name, and Gosunkugi can try summoning after summoning and get absolutely nowhere! And he’ll have no idea why it suddenly isn’t working....”

“Yes, a pleasant thought,” Nodoka agreed, then glanced at the desk clock. “Well, it’s gotten too late to start your training this morning, Nabiki, we’ll just have to put it off until tomorrow. Why don’t you two head for the furo, and I’ll go help out Kasumi.”


	10. Someone that Feels Like Home

Naked and lying on her stomach on the blanket-covered floor of their bedroom, Nabiki groaned with pleasure as Ranma’s broad, male hands worked over the sore, tense muscles of her upper back and shoulders, gently massaging away the tight knots left over from her afternoon training with Nodoka. “Oooohhhh,” she moaned, “a world-class martial artist and a masseuse, too. Is there no end to your talents?”

Ranma chuckled. “Yeah, well, Pop may have done his best ta kill me from time ta time, but he did his best fer me when I failed ta die, an’ that best wasn’t too bad. That’s why I wasn’t too surprised when we found him workin’ fer Dr. Tofu.”

“Well, _I_ was,” Nabiki muttered, remembering how her shock had reduced her to stuttering when she and Ranma had walked into Dr. Tofu’s clinic the morning after Gosunkugi’s summoning to find a giant panda greeting the patients. Ranma had ended up being the one to pass on the message that they wouldn’t be able to try to break the curse on Tofu and Kasumi that weekend, after all.

“At least Mom decided ta do yer kenjutsu trainin’ in the afternoon instead a’ the mornin’,” Ranma continued, and Nabiki thought she could feel his grin in the amused affection caressing her as gently as his hands. “She muttered somethin’ about a livin’ zombie when I asked her why.”

“Right, do you know how _disgusting_ it is, the way you and your ... and Mother are so alert and cheerful that early?”

Ranma just laughed as he continued working his way down along her body until he reached her toes, then ordered her to roll over and worked his way back up her front. She was practically purring by the time his hands moved from her breasts to her shoulders, down along her arms, then cupped her cheeks as he leaned down to gently press his lips to hers — not exactly professional behavior, but she _definitely_ had no complaints.

_Okay, so it isn’t sex, but I could definitely get used to this. It might actually make Mother’s training worth it,_ she thought through her pleasure-haze as he carefully picked her up and laid her on their bed. Scooping the blanket from the floor, he spread it across her, turned off the light, then slipped beneath it and pulled her against him.

“My turn ta hold you, tonight,” he whispered in her ear, and a happily much-loved Nabiki faded into sleep with his breath on her neck, a smile on her lips, and the sound of falling rain on the roof.

/oOo\

Ranma’s eyes shot open, instantly alert. Normally, he was a sound sleeper, but he’d found sleep difficult to come by and uneasy when achieved this first night since Gosunkugi’s summoning that he’d spent in his human form. Now he listened intently for some hint in the sound of the rain still falling for whatever had awoken him. Then it came again, the faint scuffle of careful footsteps of someone looming over the bed — someone male, by the slightly darker outline in the room’s general darkness.

“Wake up, Ranma-kun, it’s me — Ryoga,” the dark form demanded.

Ranma’s eyes widened. Ryoga, here? But the way he’d attacked him without warning at the school, and Nabiki in bed between him and the Lost Boy....

Without a word, Ranma’s hands shot out, grabbing onto the front of Ryoga’s shirt, yanking him forward even as Ranma’s legs bunched to catch him in the gut, and with a twisting grunt Ranma threw the larger boy over the bed, through the closed window and out into the rain. Even as a groggy Nabiki was lifting her head from her pillow, the pigtailed boy rolled to his feet and dove through the broken window after him, dropping to land feet-first on the narrow strip of lawn that ran between the compound wall and the house under the Tendo sisters’ ... and now his ... bedrooms. Even as a growling Ryoga climbed to his feet and shrugged his backpack into a more comfortable position on his back, Ranma felt her rain-soaked boxer shorts and T-shirt drop through her now-insubstantial body to the wet grass she was abruptly floating a few inches above. The night suddenly became lighter, and Ranma winced as the hatred and anger radiating from Ryoga rolled over her.

“Ryoga-kun, it’s the middle of the night! What are you doing here?” the nature spirit demanded.

“Silence, does revenge know night or day?” Ryoga shouted, his eyes searching for the origin of the now-female voice.

Ranma rolled her eyes. “That, again? What did I ever do ta make ya hate me that much? It can’t just be fer beatin’ ya ta the bread at our old school.”

Glaring at the empty space that as best he could tell the female voice was coming from, the fanged boy ground out, “I’ll say one thing, before I send you to hell. When you ran out on our duel, I followed you ... all the way to China!”

“To China! How did you ... ?” Ranma broke off, staring at the naked boy in the hazily translucent clothes and thinking furiously. Considering the cool rain she could feel (she was finding it hard not to giggle at the sensation of scores of tickling fingers slashing through her) Ryoga couldn’t have visited Jusenkyo, he must be soaked. But what else ... ? “You got Kissed, didn’t you?” she hooted, instinctively clutching at her sides as she broke into gales of laughter.

“Silence!” Ryoga screamed, and Ramna’s laughter cut off as she found herself squinting against the sickly-green glow of the ki the Lost Boy was suddenly radiating. “Because of you, I can never know peace! If I must know hell while alive, you will know it in death!” he shouted, and leaped straight toward the supposedly invisible succubus in a flying kick. Ranma spun up and over the boy as she instinctively tried to leap up out of the way and knock his forward-thrusting leg safely down and sent herself flying instead.

/\

Nabiki stared helplessly through the broken window down into the yard, ignoring the rain on her face as she watched her lover bring her spin under control and whirl where she floated just in time to dodge another flying kick, her own foot slamming into Ryoga’s stomach as she twisted out of the way and instinctively counterattacked. But instead of Ryoga folding over her foot, the redhead was sent flying backwards, carried by the boy’s momentum until Ryoga grabbed the leg offered and threw her at — and through — the dojo compound wall.

Behind her, her bedroom door slammed open as Akane and Kasumi rushed in, Akane in her nighttime T-shirt and panties and Kasumi holding her nightgown closed with one hand and a dumbbell in the other. Akane snatched up the bokken leaning against the wall by the door, and was quickly followed through the door by Nodoka in a night gown with sheathed katana in hand. The middle Tendo glanced over her shoulder long enough to verify the identity of the newcomers, then turned back to the window just in time to see Ranma flash back through the wall, flying level with her fists thrust forward like a movie Superman. The succubus lost a bit of momentum to the need to adjust her direction as her opponent tried to dodge, but was still moving fast enough for her fists smashing into Ryoga’s jaw to twist his head around and send him stumbling to the side, dropping his umbrella.

Nodoka and the other girls joined her at the window, her sisters on either side as Nodoka stood on tiptoe to look over their heads. “Oh, my!” Kasumi gasped, her free hand over her mouth in dismay at the sight of the part-time nature spirit swinging up wide into the air, then swooping back down toward the large boy only to get hammered to the side by a twisting kick.

“How is he _doing_ that?” Nabiki all but yelled. “In the last fight he couldn’t see or sense Ranma in nature spirit form, and now he’s nailing her every time, how?”

“It’s the ki,” Akane said suddenly.

“What?” the other three chorused, looking at her.

“He’s radiating ki ... he’s making it stick to the rain, somehow. It must be like the way he was able to make his bandanas hard when he threw them at Ranma last time, when Ranma kicked one away from him ... her. I asked Ranma later how he did it when he can only touch living things, and he said Ryoga had put some of his ki in his bandanas to make them stiff and hard, it made them glow. I think Ryoga’s doing the same thing with the rain, and —”

“And that’s turning the rain into a detection system from the way Ranma pushes it out of the way when she flies through it, if it doesn’t just outline her from sticking to her,” Nabiki finished, turning back to the fight just in time to see Ranma charge in, wings now visible and pulled in tight for extra speed, only to plow face-first into the lawn as Ryoga whirled out of the way and smashed an elbow down into the small of her back. Ranma shook her head, then frantically rolled toward the wall as Ryoga’s leap brought him smashing down where she’d been a moment before.  The succubus shouted in pain as one of her wings didn’t make it out of the way and was ground into the grass under the boy’s feet, leaving her pinned in place, lying face up on the grass and staring up at Ryoga’s fanged face.

“Okay, that’s it,” Nabiki snarled, “time for us to break this up.”

Ranma tried to block Ryoga’s follow-up punch only to have it hammer through to smash into her gut, and Akane winced as she watched the faint greenish glow-speckled female-shaped something that _felt_ like Ranma curl around the strike with an involuntary mew of pain. “But ... it’s a duel ...” she said reluctantly.

“Does my broken window look like it’s a duel?” Nabiki demanded. “He crept into our room in the middle of the night! He’s no different than Kuno and the Horde.”

Nodoka nodded, dropping off her tiptoes and drawing her katana from its sheath. “You’re right,” she agreed, turning to stride toward the door.

Akane started to follow, bokken still in hand, only to stop as Kasumi grabbed her shoulder. “Wait, it’s too dangerous,” Kasumi asserted, and handed her youngest sister the dumbbell she’d brought with her. “Here, use this.”

Akane stared at the dumbbell for a long moment, then grinned viciously. “Nabiki, out of the way!” she ordered. Nabiki watched yet another punch slam into Ranma’s chest, glanced up at her younger sister, eyes widening as Akane held up the dumbbell, then hastily stepped out of the way as a grin to match her sister’s spread across her face. Akane stepped into the space in the middle of the window, hefted the dumbbell as she watched another blow hammer home, then threw.

/\

Ryoga snarled as he smashed another blow through Ranma’s weakening defense, viciously twisting his feet on the trapped wing, exultation washing through him at the breathy shriek from the semi-amorphous female figure framed by softly green-glowing drops and rivulets of rain. It had worked! It had worked, and now he finally had the arrogant coward that had run out on their fight all the way to China where he could repay him for every moment of self-loathing, every sleepless night, every replay of the nightmare that had haunted him since China, every ...

Pinwheeling stars exploded across his vision, his chin smashing into his chest as the hurled dumbbell slammed into the back of his head. He stumbled forward, tripped over the succubus lying at his feet, and smashed head-first, backpack and all, into the compound wall and flopped at its base. Groaning as he rolled onto his side, he shook his head and instantly regretted it as pain exploded behind his eyes. He sat up and clutched his head, then looked toward his nemesis to see the glow-speckled and -streaked form rising, the wings vanishing into the humanoid torso ... and the glow was flickering. He realized with dawning horror that his ki was no longer radiating, and fading from where it had lodged. Time to go.

Forcing himself to his feet, the Lost Boy looked around for his umbrella ... it was behind and to the side of an increasingly invisible Ranma, he’d have to recover it later. Turning and leaping to the top of the wall (and suppressing a yell of his own at what the effort did to his throbbing head), he dropped to the sidewalk beyond (a not-so-suppressed groan) and started to run across the street, only to freeze as half a dozen women ghosted out of the night into the light of the streetlights, forming a half-circle in front of him.

A girl stepped forward, a chúi in each hand ... the same girl that had interfered with his last duel with that coward Ranma. She smiled broadly. “So, you have finally returned ... Husband.”

/oOo\

Ranma gasped with relief as the grinding pressure on her wing vanished, along with the almost incapacitating, all-encompassing pain that came with it. Distantly, she felt an impact against her side, then heard the crunch of something slamming into the compound wall. Turning to focus pain-filled eyes, she watched as her nemesis flopped to the ground, leaving a small, barely-visible crater behind in the translucent wall.  Ryoga slowly rolled to a sitting position as he clutched at his head even as the green ki he had been radiating vanished.

The nature spirit tried to roll to her hands and knees and found herself bobbing up into the air as she retracted her wings, leaving a red-hot bar of pain in a vertical strip along one shoulder blade that reduced the pain in her gut, chest, and the small of her back to faint aches. _Note to self: never keep yer wings out in combat. I have_ never _felt pain like that_ , she thought as she rotated her shoulder, then ran a hand along her chest between her breasts. _Okay, so there’s some good points ta bein’ a ... how did Nabs put it? ... a bundle a’ energy shaped like a human. If I’d_ been _human instead a’ just lookin’ like one, I’d have cracked ribs at least, and probably ended up pissin’ blood for awhile. Instead I ache, but nothin’s stabbin’ me when I move or hurtin’ worse._

Abruptly the Lost Boy rose to his feet, one hand on the wall for support. Even as Ranma had been examining herself she’d been keeping an eye on him, along with her empathy, sensing the hatred, and ... was that guilt? ... and something else overpowering the rest the nature spirit didn’t recognize that she’d been picking up from her father sometimes, and a few times from her mother.... Whatever it was, as he stood up the mélange of emotions suddenly shifted into a mix of reluctance and determination, and the change instantly had Ranma’s undivided attention even as she straightened and turned sideways, one arm cocked to grab any punch. _This_ time, she was going to remember her practice, and ... and the Lost Boy leaped upward with a grunt of pain, almost seeming to hang for a moment in empty air where he balanced on top of the wall, then dropped to the outside sidewalk and started to run across the street.

_Well,_ that _was a surprise_ , Ranma thought as she stared at the back of her rapidly retreating opponent. _Good riddance._ Next _time I’ll be ready, and we’ll see —_ And suddenly the Amazons that she’d gotten so used to seeing hanging around her that they’d become part of the background moved out of bushes, away from trees, around corners of barely visible houses, and stepped out into the street to intercept the fleeing martial artist.

Ryoga slammed to a stop, dropping into a defensive stance for a moment, before suddenly stepping to the side, hand knocking aside a chúi sweeping through the space he’d vacated. Ranma’s eyes widened as the girl that had interrupted their last fight came into view beyond the large boy, spinning in place, second chúi swinging for the side of his head. Ryoga dropped into a crouch beneath the swing, beginning a leg sweep only to clutch at his head and sprawl to the side as his backpack overbalanced him.

Then the first chúi swept back, clipping the Lost Boy’s temple and bouncing his head off the hard roadway. Ryoga went limp, and Ranma found herself in motion, flashing through the wall toward the women in her ‘Superman’ pose only to curve away and into a hover above them as the girl ... Shampoo? ... aborted her next strike.

As Ranma watched, four of the other women moved in and lifted the unconscious teenager to their shoulders, backpack and all, and started carrying him away, Shampoo taking the lead and the last Amazon falling in behind. _Okay, looks like Ryoga_ did _get Kissed in China,_ the hovering succubus thought. _At least, maybe ... I mean, sure, it’s embarrassing ta get chased outa China by a bunch a’ girls, but he hates me that much fer just that? What if it’s somethin’ more serious?_ She watched them move away down the street for a long moment then flew to catch up, circling along above the little procession.

/\

Turning around the outside corner of the house, Nodoka’s bare feet skidded on the wet grass and for a moment she hung suspended, flinging out her hand holding the katana to avoid cutting herself in a _highly_ embarrassing fall even as she cursed herself for her haste — she _knew_ better, damn it!

Just as her center of balance was tilting past the point of no return, a hand flashed out to catch her upper arm and pull her upright. “Easy, No-chan, Akane has it handled. The girl ought to consider a career in baseball,” Genma said absentmindedly from where he stood out of the rain under the narrow overhang around the house, his eyes fixed on the combatants on the narrow strip of lawn under the girls’ and Ranma’s bedroom windows.

Ignoring the unwelcome familiarity for more important concerns, the former Saotome focused on the lawn beneath the broken window. She caught sight of the large teenage boy her son ... daughter, at the moment ... had been fighting leaping to the top of the compound wall in spite of the large pack on his back, but ignored him as he dropped down out of sight on the opposite side to focus on her daughter. The naked redhead was floating upright, relaxing from one of the new stances that Nodoka had watched her practice, staring at ... no, staring _through_ the wall. Even as Nodoka stepped toward her daughter, Ranma was suddenly in motion, flashing through the wall.

Nodoka bit back a shout — she didn’t know what was on the other side of the wall. Striding over underneath the broken window, she called up softly, “Nabiki, can you see what’s going on out there?”

“It’s the Amazons,” Nabiki called back. “They took down that stalker and now they’re carrying him off, I figure back to their camp. For some reason that completely escapes me, Ranma’s following them.”

“Where from what you said there’s at least one Awakened that can see her, of unknown but substantial power,” Nodoka added with a sigh, and turned. “Saotome-san —” she started, only to find herself alone.

/oOo\

Ryoga groaned as he slowly became aware of the world around him. He was lying on his back, on blanket-covered ground, from the sound of the rain still falling he was under canvas, and his head was pounding hard enough to threaten to bring tears to his eyes. What had happened? He’d been giving that honorless coward Ranma what he deserved, and something had hit the back of his head, given Ranma the chance to recover, he’d decided to leave to try again later, and ... those crazy girls from China!

His eyes shot open to find a blurry face inches away from his own, and he realized there’d been hands on both sides of his head when they released him and the face withdrew. A soft, clear, lovely voice said something in what might be Chinese.

“Speak in Japanese, child,” another voice said, rough with age.

“Of course, Honored Elder,” the first voice said. “Husband truly has a hard head. Besides First Wife’s love taps, he’s taken another blow to the back of the head. He has a moderate concussion, but no internal bleeding. He should be fine with a little rest.”

Ryoga sat up and carefully looked around, finding himself in what looked like a park, as best he could tell in the nighttime rain; he focused on the people talking. The aged voice turned out to belong to a tiny gnome of a ... well, with the long white hair and the voice she was _probably_ a woman ... balancing on a staff. And the young voice was — he froze, eyes widening in shock as he found himself staring at the face that had haunted his nightmares for weeks. “Y-Y-You ... you ... you’re _alive_!” he gasped out.

“Of course, I’m alive,” the young woman said, brow furrowing. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I thought I’d ... I’d ...” Ryoga broke off and fought to hold back the tears he could feel threatening to fill his eyes and spill down his cheeks.

“You thought you’d killed her?” the gnome asked, then chuckled when he nodded wordlessly. “I will admit you gave it an honest effort. Pa Fum, perhaps it’s time you stop training in the martial arts — I suspect your husband, here, saw the way you moved at first and assumed a higher level of skill than you actually have in a true fight. Leave the fighting to your second wife.”

“Wait, husband?” Ryoga asked carefully, shifting slightly as he tried to look around surreptitiously for his backpack.

“Yes, ‘husband’,” the wrinkled gnome repeated. “Twice over, actually, your second wife, Xian Pu, is behind you.” Ryoga twisted around to find the purple-haired girl that had knocked him out sitting there, a chúi on each side. She smiled sweetly and bowed in place. “Good evening, Husband,” she said, then picked up the chúi and rose to walk around and sit again beside her co-wife.

Ryoga stared at the two, wide-eyed, too stunned to even notice the pair’s healthy beauty, then turned to the gnome. “Who ... what ... how ... ?”

The gnome smiled sympathetically. “I am Ku Lon, an Elder of the Joketsuzoku, and I’m afraid you’ve run afoul of one of our ... quirkier traditions.” She quickly explained the two Kisses used for powerful outsiders, and how he’d ended up with two wives instead of the usual one. Her explanation didn’t do much to calm the Lost Boy.

“So you expect me to just go back to China with you?” he demanded incredulously.

Ku Lon glanced up over Ryoga’s shoulder for a moment, then refocused on her guest. “If you were of the normal variety of man that defeats one of our warriors, yes,” she said with a shrug. “We have many centuries of experience in keeping such men with us at least long enough for a few children to be born. Beyond that some adjust, some never do. Those ones, we usually let escape eventually if they wish — they roil the tribe. _You_ , however, are a special case; with your wandering curse, there is no possible way to hold you for long against your will. All you need to do is walk down a street, turn a corner, and you’re gone.”

Ryoga had tried to keep his eyes on the ancient woman during her explanation, but found his gaze kept wandering back to the two girls. No, not the two girls, one in particular — and not the breathtaking beauty of the warrior, but the cute attractiveness of the girl he’d thought he’d murdered. Shampoo watched him with a growing grin, then leaned over and whispered something into Perfume’s ear (had he actually heard their names right?) that had the other girl blushing bright red, her eyes dropping demurely.

Tearing his eyes away from her even as he felt his heart skip a beat, Ryoga looked back at Cologne (he _had_ to have heard that wrong!). “Hard to believe my family’s curse is actually good for something,” he growled, mood darkening as he thought of all the long, lonely miles he’d wandered. “But if you can’t hold on to me and you aren’t going to kill me, why am I here?”

Ku Lon had been watching the little interplay, smiling, but now she sobered and leaned forward. “To make you an offer,” she replied. “While it is true that we cannot hold you, you are not the first Wanderer to grace the tribe with your presence and as a result we have created an exception to the laws. As things stand now, the focal point of your wanderings is your rival, Ranma. So long as you are focused on beating him, you will find your path crossing his anywhere from weekly to every few months.

“However, if you will accept Pa Fum and Xian Pu as your wives, _truly_ accept them so that the focal point shifts to them instead of Ranma, you will find that wherever you wander, you will have a home to return to, and the tribe to look after your children. It will be a much less lonely life.”

Ryoga found he no longer had any problem keeping his focus on Cologne, thoughts of the difference it would make in his wandering running through his mind, knowing that sooner or later he would return home — a _real_ home with his family there, always happy to see him, children racing to greet him. Then he suddenly thought of what would be entailed in _creating_ those children, and even as he tasted the blood trickling from his nose he fought to drive the image from his mind of the two girls on a bed, soft lighting, not a stitch of clothing....

/\

The three Amazons stared in shock at the suddenly unconscious teenager, blood running out of his nose. Pa Fum moved over to kneel next to him and cup her hands on each side of his head. “He seems all right,” she reported after a moment, puzzled. “But the blood —”

“He’s fine, probably just had some pervy thought ‘cause a’ yer offer.”

Xian Pu jerked around, looking for the source of the disembodied voice, but Pa Fum simply turned toward it, looking up at a point above head height several yards away. “Why do you say so, Ranma?” she asked.

“You can see me?!”

“No, but I can sense you,” she replied. “Now, what’s wrong with my patient?”

“Well ... he doesn’t get around girls much, and ... when he gets ta thinkin’ about ... some things ...”

Ku Lon had fought not to laugh at the way the boy turned nature spirit’s hands had shot to cover her bountiful breasts and mound berlow with its curly patch of red hair, then relaxed when informed she was still invisible to most of them. (Teenagers are _so_ sensitive about looking ridiculous — adults, too, come to think of it.) But now the Elder lost it, clutching her sides as she started cackling with laughter. Pa Fum and Xian Pu turned to stare at her, and her laughter increased at the sight of their bemused expressions until she lost her balance on her staff and fell over.

Finally, she fought her laughter from peals down to chuckles and sat up. “What our guest is trying to say is that your husband, here,” nodding toward the unconscious boy, “is inordinately affected by thoughts of naked girls and what he’d like to do with them. Correct?”

“Uh, yeah, pretty much,” Ranma agreed.

The two younger Amazons turned to stare at Ryoga. Pa Fum was blushing again, but Xian Pu frowned thoughtfully. “That too too big problem,” she mused. “Point of Kiss of Marriage to make strong babies.”

“Oh, I’m sure it isn’t anything that time and exposure won’t take care of, assuming he’s willing,” Ku Lon said nonchalantly.

Ranma laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure he’ll enjoy that. Well, if ya guys aren’t gonna kill him I’d better head back home. They’re probably wonderin’ what’s happened to me.”

Ku Lon picked up her staff and hopped up onto it. “I will accompany you part of the way,” she said. “Xian Pu, Pa Fum, when your husband awakens, he will probably wish for some time to think about our offer. Show him where we’ve stowed his backpack, so that when he inevitably wanders halfway around the world he’ll have it with him.”

The two girls nodded. Ranma shrugged. “Sure, why not?” She dropped down beside the diminutive crone and the two floated/bounced toward the edge of the park through the easing rain.

“Are you aware that you are being followed around by several minor demons?” Ku Lon asked quietly.

Ranma shot her a sharp look, before facing forward again. “Yeah, I know, thanks. Not a problem, we got it handled.”

“Good, then you don’t need your mother to escort you the rest of the way home, after all.”

“What?”

A wry laugh came from ahead and to one side and Nodoka stepped out from behind a tree, her rain-soaked nightgown plastered to her smoothly muscled body, feet bare, bare katana in hand hanging at her side. “How long did you know I was there?”

“Since you arrived,” Ku Lon replied. “You’re very good, for a city dweller, but not at the same level as warriors facing enemies or hunters that have others depending on them to put food on the table.”

/\

The Elder quickly made her farewells and Ranma watched as she bounced away back to the camp, then looked over at her mother, focusing as much as she could on the face that looked so much like an older version of her own — in spite of the fact that she had already seen her mother’s naked body any number of times, thanks to the way nonliving objects were next to invisible in this form, somehow the way the rain-soaked night clothes she could barely see were plastered to her mother’s body made it worse, and she _really_ didn’t want to deal with the kind of dreams that could give him.

Then Nodoka’s body was wracked by a massive shudder and she sneezed, and Ranma winced. She’d forgotten that, just because the wet cold didn’t bother her, her mother couldn’t say the same. “Come on, Mom, let’s get ya home an’ in the furo,” she said.

Nodoka nodded. “An excellent idea,” she agreed, then yelped as Ranma swept her off her feet.

“No need ta bruise yer feet any more,” the redhead said, lifting to just above head height and floating off toward the street.

The two made their way through the rain-slick streets back to the Tendo compound without a word until Ranma set her mother down in front of the front door. Nodoka reached for the latch, only to pause when Ranma grabbed her elbow. “Hold up a minute,” the young succubus said, and closed her eyes for a moment to reach out with the senses she was still getting used to. Yes, there were her fiancée’s and mom’s wards, full of power and the comforting touch of their inner light and determined love; there was the relaxed joy of some sprites dancing to the rhythm of the Voice, and others more alert but just as relaxed; and there, behind her and to the side, just as she’d felt all the way back from the park ... she turned to look at empty air. “Alright, Pop, nobody’s watchin; ya can come out now.”

Nodoka glanced between her daughter and the direction she was staring, brow furrowed in confusion ... until between one second and the next an equally soaked panda was suddenly standing on the wet grass. “How?” she gasped — it wasn’t magic, she had sensed nothing! “How long were you following us?”

“Since I met ya at the park,” Ranma answered for him, smirking a bit at the panda — the _female_ panda, remembering the prank she and the guide had played on her pop back at Jusenkyo. “Dunno how ya did it, Pop, but ya don’t hide yer emotions — I can’t see ya, but I can feel ya.”

The panda held up a sign, her eyes avoiding Nodoka’s. #A ki technique I developed.# _flip_ #Your ki reserves aren’t large# _flip_ #enough for you to learn# _flip_ #yet, but they’re close.#

“And what else can you do that you haven’t told us?” Nodoka asked, voice hard. Genma flinched, but before she could respond her former wife held up a hand. “Wait, not tonight — it’s late, and I’m soaked and freezing. But tomorrow, we’re going to talk.”

Genma sighed, eyes dropping. #Yes, Nodoka-san.#


End file.
